NEW DELHI, Mar 11: The former Chief Justice of India and Rajya Sabha member Ranjan Gogoi is learnt to have criticised the bill on holding simultaneous elections to Parliament and all state Assemblies, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favourite “One Nation, One Election” move.
In a three-hour deliberation on Tuesday with the Parliament’s Joint Committee reviewing the Bill on simultaneous elections, Mr Gogoi pointed out loopholes in the bill and cautioned that it would not be advisable to give the Election Commission (EC) unrestricted powers to decide the schedule, informed sources said.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee headed by BJP MP P.P. Chaudhary is reviewing the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 17, 2024. The Bill seeks to empower the Election Commission to conduct simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and all State Assemblies.
According to the sources, DMK Rajya Sabha member P. Wilson pointed out that Section 82 A(5) of the new Bill states that “if the EC is of the opinion that the elections to any Assembly cannot be conducted along with the general election to the House of the People, it may make a recommendation to the President, to declare by an order, that the election to that Legislative Assembly may be conducted at a later date.”
By not specifying a deadline for the Election Commission, isn’t the legislation giving it “arbitrary and unregulated powers.” Justice Gogoi, it is learnt, accepted the argument and said it would not be advisable and the section needed to be suitably amended to plug the loophole and was not legally tenable. The EC, he said, could not be given unchecked powers to decide to prolong or curtail a State Assembly’s tenure.
During the deliberations, Congress MP Manish Tewari also pointed out the example of 1991 general elections, when the outgoing Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, citing the law and order situation in Punjab, withheld the general elections in the State. The Lok Sabha seats of Punjab went for polls along with the Assembly in 1992. The Election Commission, unlike the Central government, does not have machinery to help it take such decisions, Mr Tewari, according to sources, said.
In the last meeting, former Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit had also pointed out several infirmities with the Bill and argued that it could not withstand a legal challenge.
Meanwhile, the panel has decided to launch a website to get the views from the general public on the Bill. This move comes after the Opposition questioned the submission by the high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind that 80% of response that it received on the Bill was in favour of simultaneous elections. The parliamentary panel has asked the Kovind committee to submit all the responses.
(Manas Dasgupta)
