NEW DELHI: The first meeting of the Parliamentary Panel on ‘One Nation, One Election’ will take place on January 8, PTI news agency reported citing sources.
Last week, Parliament passed the motion to form the panel which will now have 39 members to ensure representation of maximum number of states and joint parliamentary committee (JPC) will be headed by former Law Minister PP Chaudhary. The initial motion, which was to be moved on Thursday, named 31 members.
Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal moved the resolutions in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha separately amid opposition protests against parts of Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments on BR Ambedkar.
The panel shall submit its report no later than the first day of the last week of the next session
Government sources indicated that the committee’s membership was increased to 39 to ensure broader government representation and include parties interested in reviewing the two bills. The ONOE laws, which lay down procedures for simultaneous elections, were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday after intense discussions.
“The government agreed that the issue is very important and relates to the reform of the electoral process, so we agreed to include most of the prominent political parties,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju told the press. He noted that parliamentary committees can be of any size, citing an earlier centre-state relations panel that had 51 members.
The committee has been asked to submit its report to the Lok Sabha by the first day of the last week of the next session.
Who are the members?
Among the 39 members are 16 from BJP, five from Congress, two each from SP, TMC and DMK, and one each from Shiv Sena, TDP, JD(U), RLD, LJSP (RV), JSP, Shiv Sena (UBT) ), NCP (SP), CPM, AAP, BJD and YSRCP.
RS members nominated include Ghanshyam Tiwari, Bhubaneshwar Kalita, K Laxman and Kavita Patidar (BJP); Sanjay Kumar Jha (JD(U)); Randeep Singh Surjewala and Mukul Wasnik (Congress); Saket Gokhale (TMC); P Wilson (DMK); Sanjay Singh (AAP); Manas Ranjan Mangaraj (BJD); and V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP).
From LS, members include PP Chaudhary, CM Ramesh, Bansuri Swaraj, Parshottambhai Rupala, Anurag Singh Thakur, Anil Baluni, Vishnu Dayal Ram, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Sambit Patra, Vishnu Datt Sharma, Baijayant Panda and Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP); Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Manish Tewari and Sukhdeo Bhagat (Congress); Dharmendra Yadav (SP), Kalyan Banerjee (TMC), Anil Yeshwant Desai (Shiv Sena-UBT), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP) and Shrikant Eknath Shinde (Shiv Sena).
