BJP, Cong spar in first ‘One poll’ panel meet

New Delhi Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) backed two bills on simultaneous polls in India and said they reflected the people’s will even as the Congress-led Opposition argued that the move violated the tenets of parliamentary democracy and made states subservient to the Centre as the first meeting of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) examining the contentious legislation kicked off on Wednesday.

The four-and-a-half-hour meeting that began at 11am also saw the Janata Dal (United), a key National Democratic Alliance member, raise questions about whether the laws infringed on federalism and sought to know how the rights of lawmakers were protected, said people aware of details.

The 39-member panel is examining the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill – which aim to usher in simultaneous polls in India – and is scheduled to complete its report by the first day of the last week of the 2025 budget session.

“Our efforts will be to listen to people from every field - be it from political parties, civil societies, or judiciary. We want to take everyone’s input…Our effort will be to reach a consensus since the members who are part of the committee are eminent (personalities). I have faith that we will work for the nation’s interest and reach a consensus,” panel chair and BJP member PP Chaudhary told reporters.

Union law ministry officials provided each member of the panel with a suitcase packed with 18,000 pages of documents that contained the background information and the Kovind Panel report. The ministry also gave a detailed presentation on the background, rationale and proposals for simultaneous polls, said people aware of developments.

The proposal to align elections – known colloquially as one nation, one poll (ONOP) – was a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s 2024 poll manifesto and is backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who argues that it will trim election costs and shift the focus to governance.

But the proposal is fiercely opposed by a raft of political parties and activists who allege that it will hurt democratic accountability and federalism. The bills propose the alignment process to begin in 2029 and the first simultaneous elections in 2034.

The JPC has 22 members from the NDA, 15 from the INDIA bloc, and two others.

Members of the Opposition argued that the proposed constitutional amendment went against the tenets of parliamentary democracy and made states subservient to the Centre, and sought calculations on how simultaneous polls could save the public exchequer’s money, said the people cited above.

The JD(U) is learnt to have said that the government should explain the provision that said there should be a limit on the number of times that a no-confidence motion can be brought, and sought more details on the claim that simultaneous elections will boost voter turnout, said the people cited above.

The third issue raised by the JD(U) was that of governments facing a crisis of confidence if elected for a short term. The party is learnt to have said that if fresh polls were conducted when a government fell, the new government would be in power only for the remainder of the term. And if the term is two years or less, the government will neither have the time to complete its agenda nor enjoy the full confidence of people.

The BJP members defended the bill, using arguments that closely aligned with the 2024 report of the high-level committee chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind that backed the polls.

BJP member Sanjay Jaiswal pointed out that in 1957, seven state assemblies were dissolved early to ensure simultaneous polls and asked if the likes of then president Rajendra Prasad and eminent lawmakers in the Jawaharlal Nehru government violated the Constitution, said people aware of developments.

BJP lawmaker VD Sharma emphasised that the idea of simultaneous elections reflected the people’s will. He also pointed out that the Kovind-led committee consulted over 25,000 people and an overwhelming majority supported the idea.

Other BJP MPs including Anurag Thakur emphasised that simultaneous polls saved money and asked law ministry officials to give a detailed plan to implement it.

Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde — a BJP ally — spoke about how in Maharashtra, Lok Sabha, assembly, and local body polls were held in quick succession, and argued that the series of polls delayed development works as the state machinery was preoccupied.

In her first appearance at a parliamentary committee meeting, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi said all reports suggesting simultaneous polls will reduce costs were prepared before 2004, when electronic voting machines were rolled out.

She maintained that the amendments were founded upon the wrong presumption of Articles 83 and 172 (related to duration of Parliament and state legislatures) that the maximum tenure of a House is five years. She said any reduction of the term of a House would negate the essential constitutional guarantees and basic structure, said people aware of developments.

Congress lawmaker Randeep Surjewala maintained that the proposed law was against the tenets of parliamentary democracy and federalism. According to a functionary, Surjewala maintained that federal structure would be absolutely denuded if the bills became a law.

Another Congress MP, Manish Tewari, emphasised that the bill was contrary to the basic structure doctrine and asked the ministry officials how they could make states subservient to the Union, said people aware of details.

Tewari underlined that in the Golaknath vs state of Punjab case in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament cannot alter fundamental rights of the Constitution and federalism was a part of the fundamental rights. He also argued that the framers of the Constitution upheld parliamentary democracy and its basic structure can’t be altered, said people aware of developments.

At this stage, law ministry officials pointed out that in 1957, the terms of some state governments were cut short to enable simultaneous polls. Congress leaders retorted that the section 15 of the Representation of People’s Act allows the Election Commission to bring forward polls by six months and there was no need for simultaneous polls. The officials also pointed out that in 1976, the term of Parliament was extended by a year. To this, Opposition leaders said that the Constitution has a provision for the imposition of Emergency.

Trinamool Congress’s Saket Gokhale asked whether Parliament was empowered to legislate on simultaneous polls. He also challenged the argument that frequent elections led to policy paralysis. The TMC demanded that the tenure of the JPC should be made at least one year.

YSR Congress Party’s Vijaysai Reddy said that simultaneous polls will disproportionately favour dominating political parties and marginalise regional parties. He said that it will homogenise voter mandates, dilute diversity of representation and make elections an affair between two or three national parties, said people aware of details.

From the first elections in Independent India in 1952 until 1967, polls were held simultaneously across the country. But since the Lok Sabha and state assemblies can be dissolved before their tenures end, the state and national elections came to be held at different times after that.

Several committees, including a parliamentary panel, the Niti Aayog and the Election Commission of India, have studied simultaneous polls in the past, backing the idea but flagging logistical concerns.