E-Paper
Govt push for ONOP will test its ability to garner numbers
The NDA government’s ambitious plan for simultaneous national and state polls with the One Nation, One Election could be a test of its ability to muster the requisite number
The NDA government’s ambitious plan for simultaneous national and state polls with the One Nation, One Election could be a test of its ability to muster the requisite numbers as it doesn’t have a two-third majority needed to push through a Constitution amendment under Article 368 in the Lok Sabha.
This was evident even on Tuesday when opposition parties demanded a vote on the introduction of the two bills on simultaneous polls. It won 263 votes to 198 votes and the bills were introduced, but the number was well short of the 362 votes it needs (the current strength of the Lok Sabha is 542) to pass a constitution amendment. To be sure, 20 BJP MPs were absent, but even their presence would have left the NDA well short.
The Opposition too has its task cut out. It has to keep its flock together.
The government on Tuesday introduced The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, and The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to hold simultaneous polls in the states and the UTs after a heated debate with the Opposition parties uniting against the proposed law.
The government’s ability to muster numbers time and again hasn’t escaped the Opposition’s attention.
“We can’t conflate the legal principles in Article 368, with the factual numbers in the House. Firstly, the government has a PhD in the art of creating artificial majority by defection and other forms of undesirable activity. We want to know why the government is not clearly telling the country how it intends to pass the bill in Parliament,” Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi told HT.
The Congress leader also added that “there appears to b a fatal flaw if proposed amendments avoid state ratification while seeking to make fundamental changes to state assembly and poll cycle”.
This aspect –– ratification by a majority of the states –– could end up before the courts.
The proposed amendments aim to add provisions to Article 82 and according to Article 368, such bills do not require ratification by states. Singhvi, however, argued that it is going to be a legal debate as the bill makes fundamental changes to the tenure of an assembly and links it to the term of a Lok Sabha.
On Tuesday, opposition parties including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Samajwadi Party together managed 198 votes in their favour, and against the introduction of the bills. This is more than the 179 votes needed to defeat a Constitution amendment bill.
“198 is more than the required number of votes to stall the bill even if the NDA musters its full strength in the Lok Sabha,” said a senior Opposition leader who asked not to be named.
The NDA has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha following the BJP’s reduced numbers in the 2024 election. The BJP has 240 MPs in the 18th Lok Sabha.
Article 368 lays down two key conditions for a passage of a constitutional amendment. It says the bill has to be “passed in each House by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting.”
The majority of the total membership in the Lok Sabha — or 272 votes — is, in other words a simple majority which the NDA already has in the Lok Sabha. But the second condition “and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting” gives the Opposition an opportunity to stall the bill.
And this is a case where abstentions or absenteesim by the Opposition and non-aligned parties may not help the ruling side; 103 members of the Opposition (or other parties not aligned with the NDA) will have to abstain from voting or be absent during voting for the 293 votes the NDA has to translate into a two-thirds majority.
