Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025, Union Territory Government (Amendment) Bill, 2025, and Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2025 in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The three bills seek to remove the Prime Minister, a Union minister, a Chief Minister, or a minister of any state or union territory if they are arrested or detained for 30 consecutive days on serious offences that attract a jail term of at least five years.

The three bills sparked a massive uproar in Lok Sabha with Opposition MPs tearing the copies of the draft legislation and throwing them at Home Minister Amit Shah. Following the uproar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah referred the bills to a Joint Parliamentary Committee, comprising 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.

The Committee has been mandated to submit its report to the House by the last day of the first week of the next session. The next session (Winter session) of the Parliament is likely to be convened in the third week of November.

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What Are These Three Controversial Bills?

Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025

The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025, aims to fill a major gap. Currently, no provision in our Constitution allows a minister, arrested in serious criminal cases, to be removed from office. For this reason, Articles 75, 164, and 239AA of the Constitution are to be amended to provide a clear law for the removal of the Prime Minister, Union Ministers, and Chief Ministers or Ministers of states (including Delhi) in such a situation.

Union Territory Government (Amendment) Bill, 2025

There is no such provision in the current law, i.e. 'Union Territory Government Act, 1963', under which a Chief Minister or a Minister can be removed from office if he or she is arrested on serious criminal charges. To fill this gap, Section 45 of this law is being amended so that there can be a legal basis for their removal in such cases.

Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2025

Under the 'Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019', there is no provision to remove the J-K Chief Minister or any other minister from the post if they were arrested on serious criminal charges. Hence, to create a legal basis for their removal in such cases, Section 54 of this law needs to be amended.

Opposition Reactions To The Bills

As soon as the Union minister introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha, the opposition started opposing it. Opposition MPs say that this bill is "too harsh" and "against the Constitution" and warned that the BJP is pushing the country towards "police rule and dictatorship". The opposition alleges that the BJP often topples opposition governments by buying MLAs or intimidating them with central investigative agencies, and now it is trying to justify these tactics legally.

Reacting to the bill, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, "I see it as a completely draconian thing. To call it an 'anti-corruption measure' is to pull a veil across the eyes of the people. Tomorrow, you can file any case against a chief minister, have him/her arrested for 30 days without conviction. And he ceases to be a chief minister? It is absolutely anti-constitutional and undemocratic.”

Congress MP Abhisekh Manu Singhvi said, "The best way to destabilise the opposition is to unleash biased central agencies to arrest opposition chief ministers and then, despite being unable to defeat them electorally, remove them by arbitrary arrests," he said, "And no ruling party chief minister will ever be touched!"

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Reacting to the bill, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi says, "This bill is unconstitutional.Who will arrest the Prime Minister?.All in all, the BJP government wants to make our country a police state through these bills. We will oppose them. The BJP is forgetting that power is not eternal."

Left parties said the new bills are a direct "assault" on democracy and the federal framework, and vowed to oppose it "tooth and nail". Flaying the move, CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby said, "Modi Govt's 3 bills to oust PM, CMs, Ministers after 30 days in custody expose its neo-fascist characteristics. This direct assault on our democracy will be opposed by CPIM tooth and nail. We urge all democratic forces to unite against this draconian move".

Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders echoed similar sentiments and said that the Centre wants to give power to the CBI and ED to "topple state governments directly".

"When vote-chori is exposed, Modi-Shah is looking for new tricks. New Bill being brought today to allow CBI-ED to directly topple state govts for the BJP. A person is a criminal only when convicted by a court of law. Until then, they're an "accused". You can't remove a CM/Minister on mere accusation. Arrest by Modi-Shah's Central Agencies is not proof of guilt. Interesting fact: In the last 11 years, zero arrests of any Union/State ministers of BJP. All arrests only of Opposition leaders," TMC Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said.

AAP leader Anurag Dhanda said, "AAP strongly opposes the bill that the central government will introduce to parliament. This bill is a way to implement a dictatorship. The central government has been misusing agencies against the opposition leaders. Sometimes, they arrested ministers, and sometimes the chief ministers of other parties."

"They put Satyendar Jain in jail for more than 1.5 years by putting a fake case on him, and a few days ago, they said that they do not have any evidence against him. According to this bill, Satyendar Jain would be ousted from his ministerial post, despite being innocent. Using this bill, they can even bring down the whole government," he added.

Why Is the Opposition Concerned About These Bills?

The opposition has raised many concerns over the bills and alleged that, if these bills were passed, the Union Government could frame any sitting CM or a minister in cases through federal agencies and put him under custody for 30 days. Under the new bill, any CM or minister arrested under serious offences would be removed from his post on the 31st day.

Let’s understand this with an example. Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested on charges of corruption related to the alleged liquor policy scam and was put in jail for five months. However, he continued as the Delhi CM during that period. If the proposed bill had been implemented at that time, he would have automatically been removed from the post of CM within 31 days of his arrest.

Similarly, Manish Sisodia, who was the Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister of Delhi, was arrested by ED in a money laundering case related to the liquor policy scam and remained in jail for 17 months. Under the new amendments tabled in the Lok Sabha, he too would have been removed from his post after 30 days.

A similar case came to light in Tamil Nadu, where V Senthil Balaji, a minister of the ruling DMK, was arrested on charges of money laundering. Chief Minister MK Stalin first kept him as a minister without portfolio, over which he clashed with Governor RN Ravi, and the matter reached the Supreme Court. In the end, Senthil Balaji also had to resign, but if this bill had been passed earlier, he would have been removed from his post within 30 days, and there would have been no possibility of his retention.