Simultaneous polls: Parliamentary panel to hold first meeting on Wednesday

The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill were introduced in the Lok Sabha during the Winter Session and referred to the committee.

The parliamentary panel constituted to scrutinise the two simultaneous election bills will hold its first meeting on Wednesday, with officials of the Law and Justice Ministry scheduled to brief its members on the provisions of the proposed laws.

The 39-member joint committee of Parliament is headed by BJP MP P P Chaudhary and includes members of all major parties, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra of the Congress, Sanjay Jha of the JD(U), Shiv Sena's Shrikant Shinde, AAP's Sanjay Singh and TMC's Kalyan Banerjee.

Chaudhary is a former minister of state for law. The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill were introduced in the Lok Sabha during the Winter Session and referred to the committee.
The government decided to increase the committee's strength from 31 to 39 as more political parties expressed the desire to be part of the exercise to examine the two draft legislations on simultaneous elections.

Former Union ministers Anurag Thakur, Parshottam Rupala and Manish Tewari and several first-term lawmakers, including Bansuri Swaraj and Sambit Patra, are also members of the committee.

The panel has 27 members from the Lok Sabha and 12 from the Rajya Sabha.