One Nation, One Election: Amit Shah, Meghwal Meet Committee Head Ram Nath Kovind in Delhi

The first official meeting of the ‘One Nation, One Election’ committee took place at 3 pm on Wednesday at the residence of former President Ram Nath Kovind, who heads the committee on simultaneous polls, in Delhi. The meeting was attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal.

According to news agency PTI sources, the nearly hour-long meeting was described as a “courtesy call”.

Efforts are on to hold the first meeting of the high-level committee in the coming days and a venue is being finalised. The meetings in the future could also be held in hybrid mode, they said.

As per the PTI report, the law ministry is in the process of nominating officers who would help the panel and offer it secretarial assistance.

On Saturday, the government had notified the high-level committee under Kovind to look into and make recommendations on the issue of holding synchronised polls to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies.

On Sunday, top law ministry officials had briefed Kovind and had sought to know how he would like to go about the mandate of the committee.

The Union government has formed a high-level committee under Kovind to explore the possibility of conducting simultaneous polls in the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, and local bodies.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, former Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Ghulam Nabi Azad, jurist Harish Salve, ex-CVC Sanjay Kothari, ex-chairman of Finance Commission NK Singh and former secretary general of Lok Sabha Subhash C Kashyap have been appointed are other members of the committee.

Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had declined to be part of the committee.

Meghwal is a special invitee. The law secretary has been named as the secretary to the committee.

The government has called a special session of Parliament between September 18 and 22. It is speculated that a bill proposing ‘One Nation, One Election’ will be tabled during this session. The development comes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

(with inputs from PTI)