Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP in the NDA Government is now planning to place the One Nation, One Election (ONOP) Bill soon in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal will introduce two bills: the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill. In anticipation, BJP and Congress have given three line whip to their MPs to remain present in the house.
Meghwal is expected to approach Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla soon after the introduction of the ONOP Bill and seek its referral to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for further consultations. As the largest party in the Parliament, the BJP will head the JPC and also have more than one important posts. Om Birla may stake to unmask the formation of the JPC by tonight.
During his appearance at the media event called Agenda Aaj Tak, Union Home Minister Amit Shah dismissed the claims of the opposition that the ONOP Bill is erosive towards federalism. All these elections were conducted simultaneously in 1952, as Shah further stated. The assembly dissolutions in eight states allowed for synchronization in the same year.(P. Offer, 2011) The third election also obeyed this concepts.” He also wanted his readers to know that ONOP is not a new idea but is the return to an older model.
Read also:-Sanjay Malhotra Appointed as RBI Governor for 3-Year Term
The controversy is Over One Nation, One Election Bill, that aims at holding Lok sabha and state assembly elections together. Those who partial the two levels of government would be voting in one time thus, cutting the costs of holding frequent elections.
However, competitive concurrent elections won’t start at all, before 2034. The bill says the ‘appointed date’ will happen after the next Lok Sabha polls in 2029, and the simultaneous polls will begin in 2034. Currently there is legislation before parliament of India that if enacted could revolutionise the Indian electoral processes by synchronising the national and state electoral processes under a common legislation.
