One Nation One Election Bill will now increase the tension of Modi government! This is the biggest challenge for BJP

The central government introduced the One Nation One Election Bill, which has the provision of holding Lok Sabha and Assembly elections simultaneously in the country, in the lower house (Lok Sabha) on Tuesday amid strong opposition from the opposition parties. The government said that it will be sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for extensive discussion on it. 47 political parties had given their opinion to the Ramnath Kovind Committee formed on this issue. Out of these, 32 parties had supported it and 15 parties had opposed it.

The BJP-led government may have introduced this bill, but it will be a challenge to get it passed. At least two-thirds of the votes will be required to pass this bill, while at present the NDA has only a simple majority. For the first time in Parliament, voting was done through electronic machines to introduce this bill, in which 269 votes were cast in favor of the government while 198 votes were cast against the government. This was easy, because a simple majority was required for this.

BJP currently has 240 MPs and NDA has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Despite a three-line whip being issued for their presence, many MPs of the ruling party were absent when the proposal was presented. 20 BJP MPs were absent in the Lok Sabha during voting. The party has issued a show cause notice to these 20 MPs. It is being told that some BJP MPs were busy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Jaipur, as the government there has completed its one year.

The central government will need the support of many more MPs to pass the Constitution Amendment Bill on One Nation, One Election. A figure of 362 is required for a two-thirds majority. At the same time, the NDA currently has 112 seats out of 245 seats in the Rajya Sabha and they also have the support of 6 nominated MPs. The opposition has 85 seats. 164 MPs will be needed for a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha.

The ruling BJP passed the Constitution Amendment Bill in 2019 to remove Article 370. At that time, the government got 370 votes in favor and 70 votes against in the Lok Sabha. In 2019, the BJP-led NDA had 343 MPs in the Lok Sabha, while today it has 293. The opposition says that the government has introduced this bill to set a narrative at the moment.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that the bill was technically introduced, but what was heard today shows that most of the parties in the House have strongly opposed its approach. Another Congress MP Manikam Tagore said that the BJP needs a two-thirds majority to pass the bill, which will be more than 300 votes, while they have only 263 votes. BJP allies JDU, Shiv Sena and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supported the One Country One Election Bill. YSRCP also supported it.