PM Modi for wider consultations on bill: Home Minister

New Delhi, Dec 17: Prime Minister Narendra Modi favoured detailed discussion at every level on the ‘One Nation, One Election’ bill and wanted it to be referred to a Joint Committee of Parliament, Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday.

Shah made the remarks in Lok Sabha when the House was hearing objections to introducing the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill that seeks to usher in simultaneous polls to the Lower House and state assemblies.

“When One Nation, One Election bills came up in the cabinet, PM Modi said these should be referred to the Joint Committee of Parliament. There should be a detailed discussion over it at every level,” Shah said.

The Home Minister pointed out that DMK member T R Baalu too had favoured referring the bill to a parliamentary committee.

Shah said that the bill could be discussed in greater detail in the Joint Committee of Parliament.

“The report of the JPC will be approved by the union cabinet and the bill can be discussed again in Parliament,” he said.

The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha following a division of votes.

The Union Territories Amendment Bill seeks to align the elections to the union territories Puducherry, Delhi, and Jammu and Kashmir with the Lok Sabha polls.

The Union Home Minister attacked the Congress for bringing various amendments to the Constitution, saying the opposition party considered it as the "private fiefdom" of one family and amended it to remain in power.

Replying to a discussion on the "Glorious Journey of 75 Years of the Constitution of India", Shah accused the Congress of being anti-reservation and said it never worked for the benefit of the backward classes.

The minister also chided the Congress for "finding faults" in EVMs after losing elections.

At the outset, he noted that the Constitution strengthened the roots of democracy and the transfer of power happens without shedding even a drop of blood.

Shah listed many amendments made to the Constitution by the Congress, claiming the party did so for its own benefit.

Even before the first elections in the country, Jawaharlal Nehru effected the first Constitutional amendment to curtail the freedom of expression, he claimed.

“The Congress considered the Constitution as 'private fiefdom' of one family and deceived Parliament," Shah said.

He also charged that Congress deprived Muslim women of their rights for years only for vote bank politics.