NEW DELHI, Sept 3: Top officials of the Union Law Ministry on Sunday held a preparatory briefing for the former president Ram Nath Kovind who heads the high-level committee to examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha, State Assemblies and local bodies.
The government has on Saturday constituted the nine-member committee under Kovind. The Law Secretary Niten Chandra, Legislative Secretary Reeta Vasishta and others met Kovind this afternoon to understand how he would like to go about the agenda before the committee.
While Chandra is also the Secretary to the high-level committee, Ms Vasistha’s Department deals with the issue of elections, the Representation of the People Act and related rules.
Meanwhile, the BJP leaders and the union ministers hailed the “one nation, one election” norm as a novel effort to remove all hindrance of development, the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the idea was an attack on the Indian Union and all its states. In a post on X, Gandhi said, “INDIA, that is Bharat, is a Union of States.” “The idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is an attack on the Union and all its States,” Gandhi said.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has already declined to be part of the committee. He has also lamented the exclusion of Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge from the committee.
The government has included in the committee Ghulam Nabi Azad, the former leader of the opposition, instead of Kharge.
The government on Saturday notified the eight-member committee to examine and make recommendations at the earliest on the issue of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats.
The committee will examine and recommend specific amendments to the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act and any other laws and rules which would require amendments for the purpose of holding simultaneous elections.
It will also examine and recommend, if the amendments to the Constitution would require ratification by the states. The committee will also analyse and recommend possible solutions to scenarios such as hung House, adoption of no-confidence motion, or defection or any such other event in case of simultaneous elections.
(Manas Dasgupta)