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Informist, Tuesday, Mar. 11, 2025

NEW DELHI – Members of Parliament, cutting across party lines, raised concerns Tuesday about the "excessive power" being granted to the Election Commission of India under the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, designed to enable holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, sources said.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee set up to deliberate on the Bill and the accompanying Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, met to "interact with legal and constitutional experts". At the meeting, some members pointed to the proposed Article 82A sub-section 5 and said it seeks to confer excessive powers on the poll panel for holding elections to legislative assemblies, the sources said.

The proposed amendment states that if the Election Commission is of the view that elections to a legislative assembly cannot be conducted along with the general election to the House of the People, it can recommend to the president to declare that the election to that assembly may be conducted later.

The sources also said former chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who was there as a constitutional expert, told the committee that the 'one nation one election' bill does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution. Gogoi said the bill does not take away the people's right to vote and only seeks to frame a schedule for holding simultaneous elections in the country, they said.

The 'one nation one election' bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December and subsequently referred to the joint parliamentary committee for wider consultation. The Constitution amendment bill proposes to insert Article 82A to hold simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and all legislative assemblies. It also proposes to amend Article 83, which sets the duration of the Houses of Parliament, Article 172 on the duration of state legislatures, and Article 327 on the power of Parliament to make provisions with respect to elections to legislatures.

The bill provides that after its enactment, a notification will be issued by the president on the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election, and the date of that notification will be called the appointed date. "The tenure of the House of the People shall be five years from that appointed date," according to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill. "The tenure of all Assemblies, constituted by elections to the Legislative Assemblies after the appointed date and before the expiry of the full term of the House of the People, shall come to an end at the expiry of the full term of the House of the People."

Following this, elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies will be held simultaneously. In case the Lok Sabha or an assembly is dissolved prior to the completion of its full term, elections will be held only for the remainder of the term.  End

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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