'One Nation, One Poll' Bill Referred To Joint Parliamentary Committee
NDTV
Congress MPs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari and the Trinamool's Kalyan Banerjee and Saket Gokhale are among the opposition faces on the committee
Two bills to amend the Constitution - and allow simultaneous federal and state elections by 2034 - were sent to a 39-member joint parliamentary committee Friday morning, as the final act of a Lok Sabha winter session roiled by unseemly Congress vs BJP, protest vs counterprotest drama over Home Minister Amit Shah's "Ambedkar is the fashion" remark. The Lower House was then adjourned sine die.
Congress MPs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari and the Trinamool's Kalyan Banerjee and Saket Gokhale are among the opposition faces on the committee, while former Union Minister Anurag Thakur, Sambit Patra, and Anil Baluni will represent the government.
Others on the panel - expanded from 31 after smaller parties also demanded representation - are from Maharashtra's rival Shiv Sena and NCP factions and two of the BJP's allies; the latter, though, doesn't yet include either Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JDU or Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's TDP, both of which are seen as propping the BJP's government at the centre.
