Priyanka, Thakur in JPC to scrutinise 1 election Bills

New Delhi: BJP MPs Anurag Thakur and P.P. Chaudhary, along with Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, have been named among the 21 Lok Sabha members appointed to a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) tasked with scrutinising two Bills on simultaneous elections.

The Lok Sabha's business agenda for Thursday included the formation of the committee, a motion for which will be introduced by law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. Prominent BJP members like former Union minister Parshottambhai Rupala, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Anil Baluni, C.M. Ramesh, Bansuri Swaraj, Vishnu Dayal Ram, Vishnu Dutt Sharma, and Sambit Patra are part of the panel.

The committee also includes Congress MPs Manish Tewari and Sukhdeo Bhagat, Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav, TMC's Kalyan Banerjee, NCP's Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena's Shrikant Eknath Shinde, DMK's T.M. Selvaganapathi, TD's G.M. Harish Balayogi, and Chandan Chauhan.

The two 'One Nation, One Election' (ONOE) Bills, including one requiring a constitutional amendment, propose mechanisms for holding simultaneous elections. These Bills were introduced in Lok Sabha on Tuesday following intense debates.

Opposition parties have criticised the draft laws as an attack on India’s federal structure, a claim the government has rejected. Speaking at the Parliament premises, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi termed the Bills "anti-constitutional" and argued they undermine the nation's federalism, stating, "We are opposing the bill."

The BJP and its allies, including TD, JD(U), and Shiv Sena, have defended the Bills, arguing that frequent elections disrupt development programmes and that simultaneous polls would enhance efficiency by reducing election-related expenditures.