The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, is a legislative Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 17, 2024, to amend three specific Acts governing Union Territories (UTs) with Legislative Assemblies. Its primary purpose is to extend the framework of "simultaneous election"—popularly known as "One Nation, One Election"—to these UT Assemblies. The Bill was introduced alongside the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, which empowers the Election Commission to conduct simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and all State Legislative Assemblies. The underlying problem it seeks to solve is the perceived high cost and disruption to developmental activities caused by frequent elections.
The Bill works by amending three existing Acts to align the term of the UT Legislative Assemblies with the term of the Lok Sabha. Specifically, it proposes changes to the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 (governing Puducherry), the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The key provision is that if a UT Assembly is dissolved prematurely, the newly constituted Assembly will only serve for the remainder of the five-year term of the Lok Sabha to maintain synchronization. This mechanism ensures that the UT elections fall back into the national simultaneous election cycle. The Bill itself is the recent change, as it proposes to amend the existing laws to implement this new electoral synchronization framework.