NEW DELHI: The Modi government on Tuesday took a big step forward to implement its dream of “one nation, one election” by successfully introducing two bills that lay down the mechanism to hold simultaneous elections in the country.
The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha by law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal after a nearly 90-minute heated debate with the opposition terming the move “anti-constitutional.”
The bills were introduced after division of votes – 269 members in favour and 198 against – numbers that were good enough to get the bills introduced in Lok Sabha but not enough to get them passed, which requires two-thirds majority of the members present and voting.
Congress member Manickam Tagore was quick to point out that the government did not have a two-thirds majority among the 461 members who took part in the voting today. In Lok Sabha, 269 members voted in favour of the bill against the two-thirds-mark of 307.
Another Congress member Shashi Tharoor said the voting at the introduction stage of two bills on simultaneous elections in the Lok Sabha showed the BJP did not have the two-third majority required to pass a constitutional amendment.
“We (the Congress) are not the only ones that have opposed this bill. The vast majority of the opposition parties have opposed this bill and the grounds are very many, it is a violation of the federal structure of the Constitution. Why should a state government fall if the central government falls?” he told reporters in Parliament premises.
The National Democratic Alliance – which includes the BJP and its allies have 293 MPs in its camp. The Congress-led INDIA bloc has 234. If all the members in Lok Sabha are present and voting, a constitutional amendment bill will need 362 votes to succeed.
Not just the Congress, but several other parties including the DMK, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena-UBT, AIMIM among others opposed the bills calling it an assault on the basic structure of the Constitution.
YSRCP, which has four members in Lok Sabha, is the only non-NDA party to have declared support for the bill. BJD, another fence sitter, is yet to spell out its stand. BJD failed to open its account in Lok Sabha in elections this year, but has seven members in Rajya Sabha.
Little wonder, the government made it clear at the outset that it will refer the bills to Joint Parliamentary Committee for wider consultations.
Home minister Amit Shah told Lok Sabha that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said during a meeting of the Union Cabinet that the bill should be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for wider deliberations at every level.
Shah said the proposed bills did not attack the “basic structure doctrine of the Constitution, as claimed by the opposition”.
BJP allies TDP and Shiv Sena declared “unwavering support” for the legislation. But the government will need a lot more support and the BJP floor managers face a difficult road ahead if they want the bills to be passed.
The only way perhaps they can reach the magical numbers of two-third majority is by weaning away some parties from the INDIA bloc
With nearly 20 BJP MPs not present for the voting today, the party is likely to issue notices to MPs who were absent during the division of votes, according to sources. The BJP had issued a three-line whip for the presence of its MPs stating that some important legislative agenda is on the agenda.