Centre may table 'One Nation, One Election' Bill soon

New Delhi: The Union government is ready to launch its ‘One Nation, One Election’ project and can introduce a Bill in Parliament in this session itself, sources said.

The Cabinet has already approved the report of the Ram Nath Kovind

Committee on ‘One Nation, One Election’. The government now wants to form consensus on the Bill and can send it to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for detailed discussion, the sources said. The JPC will hold discussions with representatives of all political parties.

The other stakeholders will be involved in the process too, the sources said. Speakers of all state Assemblies can also be called along with intellectuals from across the country. The opinion of common people will also be taken.

Initially, the government wants to involve the people and the ways and means to achieve this can be discussed later, the sources said. Changing the current system will be extremely challenging in the absence of a consensus. Implementing the "One Nation, One Election" plan would involve at least six Bills to amend the Constitution and the government would require a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

While the NDA has a simple majority in both Houses of Parliament, getting two-thirds majority in either House could be an uphill task.

Of the 245 seats in the Rajya Sabha, the NDA has 112, the Opposition parties 85. For a two-thirds majority, the government needs at least 164 votes. Even in the Lok Sabha, the NDA has 292 of 545 seats. The two-thirds majority mark stands at 364.

But the situation could be dynamic, since the majority would be counted only in terms of the members present and voting. The government has been pushing for simultaneous elections for a while, contending that the current system is a drain on time, money and effort.