Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari are on the Congress’ list of nominees to a joint parliamentary committee that will study the ‘one nation, one election’ Constitution Amendment Bill that was tabled in Parliament yesterday, sources told NDTV Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Tewari was the first opposition leader to speak out against the ‘one nation, one election’ proposal after the bill was placed in the House; the Congress leader said the move to a single election model “directly challenges the federal nature of the country… by imposing uniformity across states”.
The Congress, the single largest opposition party in Parliament, has also named Randeep Surjewala and Sukhdeo Bhagat Singh, while the Trinamool has named Saket Gokhale and Kalyan Banerjee.
Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena has nominated Anil Desai, while the faction led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will be represented by his son, Shrikant Shinde, sources said further.
The committee can have a maximum of 31 MPs based on each party’s Lok Sabha numbers. This favour the ruling BJP – the largest party in the Lower House with 240 MPs. The Congress has 99 MPs.
A maximum of 10 committee members can also be drawn from the Upper House; Mr Surjewala and Mr Gokhale, for example, are from the Rajya Sabha. The BJP, sources told NDTV, will lead the committee.
‘One Nation, One Poll’ Committee
The JPC is expected to hold “wider consultations” with various stakeholders, including MPs not part of the committee and other legal and constitutional experts, such as former judges and lawyers.
Former members of the Election Commission may also be consulted.
The Election Commission is the top poll body in the country and will have the extraordinarily mammoth task of organising simultaneous Lok Sabha and state elections, if the bills to amend the Constitution, and the ‘one nation, one election’ bill itself, are passed by Parliament and then ratified by the states.
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Sources also said the BJP is keen on consulting all Assembly Speakers, while feedback will also likely be sought from the public. Once these inputs have been gathered, sources said the committee will consider each aspect, moving clause by clause, of the two bills proposing changes to the Constitution.
The committee will have an initial 90 days to submit its report.
What Is Constitution Amendment Bill?
The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill proposes changes to five articles of the Constitution to allow for the conduct of simultaneous federal and state elections, as the first step in the ‘one nation, one poll’ electoral model pushed by the BJP.
Introduced by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal in the Lok Sabha, it prompted hours of bitter arguments, debates, and protests before the opposition forced a division vote – unusual at this stage of a bill – for Parliament to formally accept the proposed legislation.
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This first hurdle was easily cleared; 269 MPs voted to table it, while 198 stood opposed. That narrow margin – enough to introduce the proposed law but not enough to pass it, if that was a vote to do so.
BJP vs Opposition Over ONOP
The tabling of the bill saw fierce protests from almost every major opposition party.
The Congress, the Trinamool, the Samajwadi Party, and the DMK all spoke out against it, demanding it either be scrapped or sent to a joint committee, while the Shiv Sena group led by ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP of Sharad Pawar also expressed their opposition.
Asaduddin Owaisi of the AIMIM rose to make a brief but forceful point, asserting the proposed changes to the Constitution would violate states’ right to self-governance.
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There were, however, also stray voices of support.
Two of the BJP’s allies – Andhra Pradesh’s ruling Telugu Desam Party and the Sena faction of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde – spoke of their “unequivocal” support for the bill.
The YSR Congress of ex Andhra Chief Minister Jagan Reddy and Punjab’s Shiromani Akali Dal are also understood to be backing the ‘one nation, one election’ push.
What Is ‘One Nation, One Election’?
Simply put, it means all Indians will vote in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections – to pick central and state representatives – in the same year, if not at the same time.
As of 2024, only four states voted with a Lok Sabha election – Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha voted alongside the April-June Lok Sabha election. Three others – Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir – voted in October-November.
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The rest follow a non-synced five-year cycle; Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana, for example, were among those voted at different times last year, while Delhi and Bihar will vote in 2025 and Tamil Nadu and Bengal are among those that will vote in 2026.
Can ‘One Nation, One Election’ Work?
Not without an amendment to the Constitution and that amendment being ratified by the governments of all states and union territories, as well as, possibly, major political parties.
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These are Article 83 (term of Parliament), Article 85 (dissolution of Lok Sabha by the President), Article 172 (duration of state legislatures), and Article 174 (dissolution of state legislatures), as well as Article 356 (imposition of President’s Rule).
Legal experts have warned that failure to pass such amendments will leave the proposal open to attack on charges of violating India’s federal structure.
