Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday offered guarantees and rebukes to the opposition – with a jibe for the Congress, though he didn’t name the party – as they protested against three contentious bills tabled in Parliament. “We look at India as one… not in parts,” he declared.
On the delimitation bill – the redrawing of parliamentary and constituency boundaries – he said: “I give my guarantee… no injustice will be done to any state, from east to west, north to south.”
The guarantee followed repeated agitations by southern states who fear redrawing constituency boundaries will translate into losing parliamentary seats (and heft at the centre) to northern, Hindi-speaking states – like Uttar Pradesh – that are seen as BJP strongholds.
And responding to criticism of the bill to give women 33 per cent reservation in the expanded (by nearly 50 per cent) Lok Sabha, he said: Those who opposed this in the past… they were not forgiven by women of the country and they ended up badly in elections that followed.”
“Let all of us not miss this important opportunity to give reservation to women,” he said, “I have come to appeal to you – do not see this from a political lens, this is in national interest.”
Mocking opposition parties who, in the past, accused him of taking credit for welfare schemes introduced by earlier governments, he laughed: “You can take credit. I am willing to give ads with photos of whoever… giving a ‘blank cheque’ to take the credit for the women’s quota.”
Reservation for women lawmakers, he said, was something that should have been enforced 25-30 years ago. “(Had we) implemented it then, today we would have been a mature country.”
A fiercely critical opposition has said proposals to redraw constituency boundaries and increase Lok Sabha seats are “flawed” – Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge called it “an assault on our democracy” – and had been bundled with the women’s bill to force it through parliament.
The delimitation exercise is a longstanding flashpoint between the centre and southern states, one that rears its head periodically and has done so again ahead of the election in Tamil Nadu this month. The southern state is a particularly vocal opponent of delimitation, arguing that it, like its neighbours, will be penalised for having successfully controlled population levels.
All three bills – the third increases the number of Lok Sabha seats to 850 – were tabled in Parliament this afternoon. Two were introduced by Law Minister Arjun Meghwal.