New Delhi: The chairperson of the Joint Committee of Parliament examining the Bills related to ‘one nation one election’ said on Friday (July 10) that the plan to conduct simultaneous elections could be made fully operational by the 2029 general election.Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP P.P. Chaudhary, who heads the Committee claimed that so far nearly 99 % of civil society stakeholders who were consulted have backed the proposal, reported Press Trust of India.Chaudhary made the remarks on the sidelines of the committee’s two-day meeting in Goa to discuss the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024, wherein it began its interaction with chief minister Pramod Sawant and members of his Cabinet.During the interaction, Chaudhary cited findings placed before the high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind and said that the Kovind committee had estimated that holding separate elections across the country results in an economic loss of nearly Rs 7 lakh crore.In September 2024, the Union cabinet had approved the report by the high-level committee headed by Kovind on the ‘one nation one election’ proposal that recommended simultaneous polls in the country to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies as well as local bodies (including panchayats and municipalities).In its 18,626-page report, the committee recommended the conduct of simultaneous elections in two steps. In the first step, simultaneous elections will be held to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies and in the second, elections will be held to the municipalities and panchayat bodies within 100 days of the elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.After the Union government had tabled the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, and the Union Territories Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024, opposition parties had slammed the move and criticised the bills. Thereafter, they were sent to the Joint Committee headed by Chaudhary.