Ex-Chief Justice Make Suggestions For Simultaneous Polls Roll Out Before Joint Panel

Former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit on Tuesday made several suggestions, including rolling out simultaneous polls in a phased manner, to a Joint Parliamentary Committee studying the two bills for 'one nation one election' (ONOE), sources said.

They added that Mr Lalit in his remarks said the concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections was good in theory but several factors should be addressed for its smooth implementation.

Besides Mr Lalit, former Law Commission of India chairperson Ritu Raj Awasthi shared his views as the panel began consulting experts and stakeholders.

Opposition members criticised the concept, with Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra claiming "one nation one election" (ONOE) will weaken democracy by tinkering with tenure of legislatures and impinge on people's rights, the sources said.

A BJP ally wondered if a gap of five years between two elections will weaken elected representatives' accountability to people, they added.

IAS officer Niten Chandra, secretary of the high-level Kovind committee, and E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, a senior advocate and former Congress MP who had headed in 2015 a parliamentary committee that favoured simultaneous polls, also appeared before the panel. They could not share their views due to to paucity of time and are expected to present their views later.

Mr Awasthi spoke in detail about the benefits of the simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly elections in terms of savings and boost to development.

The parliamentary committee's agenda for the February 25 meeting is briefly listed as "interaction with legal experts".

The high-level committee headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind was constituted by the Modi government on 'one nation one election' and it had in its voluminous report strongly batted for the concept.

Subsequently, the Union Cabinet accepted the committee's recommendations and the government tabled two bills, including one seeking to amend the Constitution, in Lok Sabha.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla constituted a 39-member Joint Parliamentary Committee headed by BJP MP and former law minister P P Chaudhary.

The parliamentary committee had so far held two meetings, excluding Tuesday's, in which prepared broad details of its agenda and the list of stakeholders and experts to be consulted is given.

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