December 17, 2024 - The One Nation, One Election (ONOE) Bill is to be introduced in the Lok Sabha, today. It is listed on the Lok Sabha agenda for today with just four days of the Winter Session of Parliament remaining. As per the agenda, the Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal will introduce the Bill and could request Speaker Om Birla to forward it to the Joint Committee of Parliament for wider discussion. The ONOE Bill had been cleared by the Cabinet last week.

ONOE proposes holding the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly elections simultaneously. It seeks the amendment of Article 83 (duration of Houses of Parliament), Article 172 and Article 327 (power of Parliament to make provisions with respect to elections to Legislatures) and adding Article 82(A) (simultaneous elections to the House of the People and all Legislative Assemblies).

The INDIA bloc parties have registered their opposition to the Bill and are likely to try to block it in the Parliament. The Congress Party has issued a whip to all its MPs in the Lok Sabha to be present in the House today with the ONOE listed on the agenda.

As per Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, “The Bill will be presented in Parliament, and we want it to be referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which will hold discussions on it. The Indian National Congress's position was clarified last year by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, who sent a four-page letter to former President Ram Nath Kovind's committee on One Nation, One Election, stating that we oppose the Bill.”

Yesterday, the ONOE Bill was expected to be tabled in the House but in a surprise move, the government went back on its decision despite indicating its intention to do so. The agenda posted on the Lok Sabha website yesterday included introduction of The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024 and The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024 after 12 noon. Both these Bills would enable ONOE. However, later a Revised List of Business was posted on the site without these two Bills .

According to government sources, the government put off the introduction of these Bills to later because it wanted to first pass the initial batch of supplementary demands for grants before moving on to any other business.