PM Modi Visits Veerabhadra Temple in Lepakshi, Andhra Pradesh

New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) The Centre will introduce the ‘One Nation, One Election’ (ONOP) Bill in the Lok Sabha at noon on Tuesday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has issued a three-line whip to all MPs in Lok Sabha ahead of the introduction of the bill.

‘One Nation, One Election’ bill, which provides for simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, is slated to be introduced in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The listed agenda of Lok Sabha for Tuesday includes the Constitution Amendment Bill concerning simultaneous elections.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill will be introduced by Union Law Minister Arjun Meghwal.

Arjun Meghwal is also likely to introduce a Bill on Tuesday to further to amend the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

This bill seeks to align elections for Assemblies in Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and Puducherry for purposes of simultaneous elections.

Following this announcement, BJP’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP) also issued a whip to all its MPs in the Lok Sabha, and Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) also asked all MPs to be present in the House.

The Union Cabinet approved the ‘One Nation One Election’ bill earlier this month.

After its introduction, Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is expected to request Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to refer the ‘One Nation One Election’ Bill to a Joint Committee of Parliament for wider consultations. The joint panel will be constituted on a pro-rata basis, based on the strength of MPs of various parties.

While the BJP and its allies are in support of the bill, several opposition parties including Congress, Trinamool Congress and DMK are opposed to it.

The Union Cabinet had in September accepted the recommendations of the High-Level Committee on Simultaneous Elections. The panel was headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind.

The recommendations were outlined in a report by a high-level panel chaired by former President Kovind.

The panel recommended the implementation of simultaneous polls in two phases. It recommended holding Lok Sabha and Assembly elections simultaneously in the first phase and conducting local body elections (panchayat and municipalities) within 100 days of general elections.

It said there should be a common electoral roll for all elections.

–IANS

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Guwahati, Dec 22 (IANS) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said that child marriage will be eradicated from the state by 2026.

He said, “After assuming the Chief Minister’s post, I took a pledge to eradicate the evil of child marriage from the state. Initially, we arrested around 5,000 people for their involvement in child marriage. Following the stern police action, the number of arrests was later reduced to 2,000.”

The Chief Minister mentioned that the police in a recent crackdown against child marriage arrested at least 400 people.

“Recently we took into custody around 400 persons as they were engaged in child marriages. The gradual decrease in number of arrests shows that the situation has improved a lot and we are moving towards a day when child marriage will be completely eradicated from Assam,” he added.

The CM argued that along with strict enforcement, beneficiary schemes like the Nijut Moina initiative have been uplifting the girl children towards a better future.

The Nijut Moina initiative of the state government aims to cover 10 lakh girl students with an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore and in the first year, over 1.6 lakh girls will get Rs 240 crore.

Sarma said, “Assam has started a big initiative today by launching Nijut Moina. Under this scheme, the girl students who study at the graduation level will receive a monthly scholarship of more than Rs 1000 and those who pursue post-graduation are set to get Rs 2500 per month to bear the education expenditure. In this way, we want that girl students should not depend on their parents to continue higher education.”

The Chief Minister argued that with the launch of this initiative, the child marriage cases will come down in Assam.

“We are anticipating that Nijut Moina will able to eradicate the evil of child marriage from the state,” he said.

Sarma further said that one of the primary conditions to avail this scheme is that the girl students will remain unmarried till they reach the post-graduation level.

“As the aim of this initiative is to eradicate child marriage, the girl students studying at the graduation level must remain unmarried till they finish their undergraduate curriculum. Once they reach the post-graduation level, there is no bar in remaining unmarried to avail the Nijut Moina scheme. At that point, they will reach their minimum age of marriage and we also desire that the girls get married in a specific period and lead a happy life,” he stated.

The Chief Minister also laid down another condition that no daughter of MP, MLA or minister can get the benefits of this financial support initiative.

–IANS

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