First Joint Parliamentary Committee meet over 'One Nation One Election' bills to be held on January 8

New Delhi: The first meeting of the multi-party Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to scrutinise 'One Nation One Election' bills will be held on January 8, sources said.

The meeting of the JPC headed by senior BJP MP PP Chaudhary will be introductory in nature with officials from the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Law and Justice briefing the 39-member panel about the two bills.

The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday and referred to the JPC on the last day of the Winter Session of Parliament on Friday. The Bills aim to enable a mechanism for conducting simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.

The committee has been given time till the first day of the last week of the Budget Session to submit its report, if no further extension is given. In such a scenario, the report is likely to be submitted by March-end or early April.

The panel with 27 Lok Sabha MPs and 12 Rajya Sabha MPs has former Union ministers Anurag Thakur, Parshottam Rupala and Manish Tewari, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, P Wilson, Bansuri Swaraj and Supriya Sule among others as members.

The bills are unlikely to have a smooth run in Parliament, as most of the Opposition parties are against the idea of 'ONOE'.

The voting during the introduction of The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill showed that the government had only a simple majority required for introducing the Bill and not two-third majority required for passing a Bill to amend the Constitution.