Challenges for Modi’s ‘One Nation, One Poll’ Bill Explained

The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wants to change how elections work in the country. They proposed a plan called ‘One Nation, One Poll’ (ONOP). This plan means that all elections—both national and state—would happen at the same time. To make this change, the government needs a strong majority, which means at least two-thirds of the votes from both houses of Parliament.

However, the government does not currently have enough votes to pass this bill. In a recent vote in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament), the government received 269 votes while the opposition received 198 votes, out of a total of 461 votes. Congress MP Manickam Tagore pointed out that this means the government didn’t reach the required two-thirds majority to introduce the bill.

Opposition leaders mentioned that this bill doesn’t have the strong emotional appeal that past laws—like the one removing Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir—had. All major opposition parties, including Congress and several regional parties, are against ONOP. They see it as a threat to their existence because they believe it could give the BJP, which has a strong leader like Modi, an unfair advantage in state elections.

Prominent regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), Trinamool Congress, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) are strongly opposing this bill. They worry they won’t have enough resources, like money and volunteers, to compete in local and national elections at the same time. Other regional parties that used to support the BJP, like YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD), have also turned against the government after recent election results.

To pass the ONOP bill, the government needs two-thirds of the votes from members present and voting. The current ruling coalition, known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha out of 543 and 125 in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house). The NDA had a larger number of seats in 2019 when they successfully passed the bill to remove Article 370.

On Tuesday, Home Minister Amit Shah announced that Prime Minister Modi wants the ONOP bill to be reviewed by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for further discussions. The BJP is also working to educate people about the benefits of the ONOP plan to gain more support. However, the government has mentioned that, even if the bill passes, this change won’t happen until 2034.