Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Newly elected Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, BJP's Bansuri Swaraj and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar)'s Supriya Sule are among 21 members from the Lok Sabha in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that will examine the two Bills to enable simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.
The JPC will have 31 members, including ten MPs from Rajya Sabha whose names are not officially out yet. From Lok Sabha, the ruling NDA has 14 members in the panel while the Opposition has seven.
While Congress has three MPs from Lok Sabha, the ruling BJP has ten MPs besides accommodating one each from ally parties TDP, Jana Sena, Shiv Sena and RLD. From the Opposition, there are one each MPs from Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, DMK and NCP (SP).
A motion to choose 21 MPs from Lok Sabha will be moved by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal in the Lower House on Thursday. The motion would also ask Rajya Sabha to nominate ten MPs from the Upper House to the panel.
Besides Priyanka, the two other Congress MPs in the panel are Manish Tewari and Sukhdeo Bhagat. Congress sources said Randeep Surjewala would be their choice from Rajya Sabha.
Trinamool has nominated its Lok Sabha Chief Whip Kalyan Banerjee to the panel while sources said it will be nominating Saket Gokhale from Rajya Sabha to the panel. DMK's TM Selvaganapathi and Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav would also be members.
BJP has nominated PP Chaudhary, CM Ramesh, Parshottam Rupala, Anurag Thakur, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Sambit Patra, Vishnu Dayal Sharma, Anil Baluni and Vishnu Dutt Sharma as their members besides Bansuri.
Shiv Sena's Shrikant Shinde, TDP's GM Harish Balayogi, RLD's Chandan Chouhan and Jana Sena's Balashowry Vallabaneni will be in the panel.
While introducing the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024 and The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that he would soon bring a motion in Lok Sabha to send the two proposed legislations to a JPC for further Parliamentary scrutiny.
From Rajya Sabha, sources said, DMK may nominate P Wilson and BJD Manas Ranjas Mangarai to the panel.
The two Bills were introduced in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Bill to amend the Constitution to enable simultaneous polls was introduced after a 263-198 vote. Opposition claimed that the numbers showed that the government did not have two-third majority to push a Constitution amendment bill. The Opposition’s 198 votes were also above 179, which is needed to defeat such a Bill if all members voted.