Amit Shah, Arjun Ram Meghwal attended least meetings held by 'One Nation, One Election' panel to discuss draft

Home Minister Amit Shah and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal have the lowest attendance in the meetings held by the Ram Nath Kovind-led High Level Committee for One Nation, One Election (ONOE).

Of the 14 meetings held by the nine-member panel exclusively where outside parties were not invited, both attended four meetings. However, both attended only one meeting of the ten convened to discuss the draft and were absent when the report was finalised on March 10.

When the panel had a consultation with the Law Commission on October 25 last year, the second time they met, all members were present. If one adds this, Shah and Meghwal attended five meetings.

When it was formed, the panel had ten members but Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury quit the panel, saying he has “no hesitation whatsoever in declining to serve” the committee.

“...the sudden attempt to thrust a constitutionally suspect, pragmatically non feasible and logistically unimplementable idea on the nation, months before the general elections, raises serious concerns about ulterior motives of the government,” he said in a letter in which he also questioned the omission of Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge from the panel.

The first meeting was held on September 23 last year, and it was the only one where all the nine members attended.

The last eight meetings from February 21 were held to discuss the draft report but none of these meetings had full attendance. The panel also held separate meetings with former Chief Justice SA Bobde and former Supreme Court judge Justice Hemant Gupta during this period, which were attended only by Kovind and Chandra.

When the panel had a consultation with the Law Commission on October 25 last year, all members were present. If one adds this, Shah and Meghwal attended five meetings.

The last meeting on March 10 when the report was finalised only five attended. Shah attended the February 21 meeting, which discussed the draft, while Meghwal attended the meeting on February 24 which deliberated on the draft.

NK Singh and Sanjeev Kothari were the only two members besides former president Kovind who attended all the 14 meetings. Member Secretary Niten Chandra attended 13 while Subhash K Kashyap attended 10, Ghulam Nabi Azad 6 and Harish Salve 6.

Singh also submitted a paper 'Macroeconomic impact of harmonising electoral cycle -- Evidence in India” authored by him and Dr Prachi Mishra, which argued that “simultaneous elections would precipitate higher economic growth as it would lead to higher public investment and reduce wasteful expenditure on freebies”. He also did a presentation for the committee, which was attended by all members but Shah.