Cabinet nod to 2 bills for ‘One Nation, One Election’
*UT’s Assembly term to be cut short by 6 months
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 12: As the Union Cabinet today approved two bills to implement ‘One Nation, One Election’, one of the bills also proposed simultaneous Assembly polls with Lok Sabha and other State Assemblies in the three Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Puducherry, the only UTs with Legislature.
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One of the bills proposed to amend provisions in three laws dealing with the Union Territories that have Legislative Assemblies including Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Puducherry. The bill will seek to align the terms of these Houses with other Legislative Assemblies and the Lok Sabha as proposed in the Constitution Amendment Bill.
The statues it proposed to amend are Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019, National Capital Territory of Delhi Act 1991 and the Government of Union Territories Act 1963.
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The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 was approved by the Parliament on August 5, 2019 and has been amended from time to time. It was passed to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution of India granting special status to erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir and split it into two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh. Ladakh is the UT without Legislature.
If the bills are passed and implemented along with 2029 Parliamentary polls, Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will have to be advanced by about six months from its five-year term. Assembly polls in J&K were held in September-October this year after about a decade and five year-term of the Legislature will end in the middle of October, 2029. However, the Lok Sabha elections will be held in April-May 2029 if everything goes well.
And if the proposal for simultaneous elections mature, Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will have to be advanced by about six months and term of the Legislature will be cut to four and half years.
Previously, term of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was six years. However, in Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act passed on August 5, 2019 when special status of the erstwhile State was scrapped, the Central Government fixed the Assembly’s term at five years at par with Lok Sabha, other States and UT Assemblies.
As of now, the Cabinet has given its nod to draft legislations to hold simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies only, the sources said.
While a high-level committee led by former President Ram Nath Kovind had also proposed holding the Municipality and Panchayat polls along with the national and State elections in a phased manner, the Cabinet has decided to stay away, “as of now”, from the manner in which local body elections are conducted.
The Constitution amendment bill to hold simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and State assemblies will not require ratification by at least 50 per cent of the States, the sources noted.
Another Constitution bill proposed by the Kovind panel was aimed at creating provisions to hold simultaneous elections to municipalities and Panchayats, along with the elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative assemblies, by inserting a new Article 324A.
It would have required ratification by half of the State Assemblies.
But the Union Cabinet has kept the local body polls out as of now.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A high-level committee headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind had made recommendations on simultaneous elections, which were accepted by the Cabinet in September.
The top 10 recommendations on simultaneous polls made by the high-level panel are:-
The Government must develop a legally-tenable mechanism in order to restore the cycle of simultaneous elections.
In the first stage, elections for the Lok Sabha and all State legislative Assemblies can be held together.
In the second step, the elections to Municipalities and Panchayats will be synchronized with the Lok Sabha and State assemblies in such a way that the polls to Municipalities and Panchayats are held within 100 days of the holding of the Parliamentary and Assembly elections.
For the purpose of synchronizing the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the President shall notify the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election as the “appointed date”.
The tenure of all State Assemblies formed via polls after the “appointed date” and before the expiry of the full term of the Lok Sabha will only be for the period ending up to the subsequent Parliamentary polls. After this one-time transitory measure, all Lok Sabha and Assembly polls will be held simultaneously.
Fresh elections could be held to constitute a new Lok Sabha in the event of a hung House or a no-confidence motion or any such event.
Where fresh elections are held for the House of the People (Lok Sabha), the tenure of the House will be “only for the unexpired (remaining) term of the immediately preceding full term of the House”.
When fresh elections are held for State Legislative Assemblies, then such new assemblies — unless sooner dissolved — shall continue up to the end of the full term of the Lok Sabha.
A single electoral roll and elector’s photo identity card (EPIC) shall be prepared by the Election Commission (EC) in consultation with the State Election Commissions and the same will substitute any other electoral roll prepared by the EC.
For making logistical arrangements for the conduct of simultaneous elections, the EC may draw up a plan and estimate in advance for the procurement of equipment, such as EVMs and VVPATs, deployment of polling personnel and security forces and make other necessary arrangements.
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