Congress accuses government of ‘brute-forcing’ its demarcation proposals, which are nothing more than ‘distraction weapons’

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday stepped up its attack on the Modi government’s delimitation proposal to implement the women’s reservation law, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing back on a proposal that would be more beneficial to the populous states as their already huge numbers would further expand”.Jairam Ramesh, the Congress secretary-general in charge of communications, said in an article published onCiting the Prime Minister’s remarks, the Congress leader said, “He (the Prime Minister) said that if the strength of the Lok Sabha increases by 50 per cent and the number of seats in the states in the Lok Sabha also increases by 50 per cent, the South Indian states will not suffer any harm.” This is deceiving the people of this country, a country where the Prime Minister has unique expertise. ““For example, the gap between Uttar Pradesh and Kerala in the Lok Sabha is now 60 seats. Mr. Modi’s proposal will increase this gap to 90. Similarly, the gap between Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will increase from 41 to at least 61. Such examples can be multiplied,” Ramesh added.“Modi is pushing back on a proposal that would favor larger and populous countries as their already large populations would further expand,” he claimed.Ramesh further said that not only South India but also Punjab, Haryana and the Northeast will see their influence decline.He concluded his post by saying: “The country is facing a serious economic and foreign policy crisis. All the Prime Minister cares about is pushing for the strengthening of the Lok Sabha and Parliament without meaningful consultations and broad public debate. This is nothing more than a Weapon of Mass Distraction (WMD). “Sharing his post, Congress leader Manish Tewari said, “PM Modi’s framework is absolutely wrong. The framework must be how much political clout South, West, North-East and North-West India will lose in terms of disparity in the number of parliamentary seats compared to states in the Hindi heartland of India,” Tewari said.He claimed that the north-western states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and even Delhi will fail as they have been marginalized in the larger federal scheme. “They have only 40 seats in total in the Assembly today. UP alone has 80 seats and the gap will only widen further,” Tewari stressed.Tewari noted that while the proposals from the Prime Minister’s Office and the BJP were not yet clear, “it will further distort the federal balance to the detriment of non-Hindi speaking heartland states”.Senior leader P Chidambaram also told X, “The proposal to convene Parliament from April 16 to 18 is a mischief and must be opposed.”“Polls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are scheduled for April 23 (Polls in West Bengal are on April 29). The opposition in the Lok Sabha has 39 TN MPs and 28 West Bengal MPs. They will fully participate in their constituencies from April 16 to 18. If important Constitutional Amendment Bills are discussed and voted on on these dates, how will these 67 MPs in the Lok Sabha participate and vote? It is suspected that this design is to exclude these MPs,” Chidambaram claimed.The former union minister, who was in charge of finance and home affairs during the UPA regime, said, “As the draft bill proposed by the government to be tabled in Parliament from April 16 to 18 has not yet been published, I cannot comment on the substance of the bill. But the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday hinted at what the bill may contain.”He said the proposal to increase the number of Lok Sabha members from 548 to 816 (currently 543) was regressive and would widen the gap between states with larger populations and southern states with stable populations.Chidambaram suggested that reserving one-third of the seats for women in the Lok Sabha could be achieved by retaining one-third of the existing seats. “The Lok Sabha with 816 members will become a large and unwieldy gathering with less opportunity and less time for each member to speak. When an MP gets a chance to speak once every three months and for not more than a few minutes, what can he/she say?” he asked.