Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Friday forwarded two bills that outline the procedure for conducting simultaneous elections to a joint parliamentary committee made up of 39 MPs from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
The bill for the Constitution (129th Amendment) and the Union Territories Amendment was presented in the Lok Sabha following a heated discussion on December 17, where the Opposition labeled the action as “dictatorial,” while Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal claimed that the legislation would not alter the authority held by states.
As per a release from the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the joint parliamentary committee made up of 27 Lok Sabha and 12 Rajya Sabha MPs will examine the bill and provide its recommendations to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
The Opposition MPs have strongly opposed the bills, describing the notion of simultaneous polls as a breach of the “basic structure of the Constitution.”
Congress member Manish Tewari rejected the introduction of the bills, calling the action an attack on the basic structure doctrine, which asserts that some aspects of the Constitution cannot be altered by Parliament’s amending authority.
“One of the essential features is federalism and the structure of our democracy. The bills assault the basic structure of the Constitution and exceed the legislative competence of this House,” Tewari, a former Union minister, said.
At the same time, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi stated that the legislation will “eliminate” the regional parties.
