The Opposition on Friday slammed the government’s linking of the women’s reservation law to a delimitation exercise, through a constitutional amendment, saying it was a covert attempt to redraw constituencies to benefit the ruling party.
“This is not a women’s bill, it has nothing to do with empowerment of women. This is an attempt to change the electoral map of India, using and hiding behind India’s women,” leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said while intervening in the marathon discussion.
The constitutional amendment was necessitated by the government’s decision to implement the reservation before the 2029 general election by tying it to a delimitation based on the 2011 population census, instead of a fresh census.
Rahul said the Centre’s motive in doing so was to avoid a caste census, which is to be part of the next census, and deprive the OBCs of their due. He described the exercise as “Manuvad over Samvidhan.”
Rahul said the amendment bill — which he claimed the BJP knew would be defeated — was a panic reaction from a Prime Minister who wanted to create a distraction from the controversies involving him.
The Opposition also scoffed at the government’s late Thursday night decision to notify the original women’s reservation law of 2023, claiming the Centre had suddenly realised it was trying to amend a law that had technically not been brought into force.
Although the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam secured presidential assent in 2023, it had not come into operation till now. Section 1(2) of the law says “it shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint”.
Rahul’s Congress colleague from Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, warned that the delimitation would turn out to be a political demonetisation, damaging the country the way the November 2016 decision had.
He questioned home minister Amit Shah’s assurance that the delimitation would provide an across-the-board 50 per cent rise in seats, and that no state would lose its proportional strength in the Lok Sabha.
“This remains a precarious political assurance and not a legislative certainty, because the pledge is fundamentally contradicted by the existing text of the legislation itself, which gives total freedom to the delimitation commission appointed by the government, whose decisions cannot be challenged in a court of law,” he said.
“Since this formula, what Shri Amit Shah said, is not codified as an immutable constitutional or legislative safeguard, it could be easily discarded or altered by a simple parliamentary majority, offering no guarantee that it will survive beyond the very short term.
“Furthermore, expanding the Lok Sabha to an 850-member house would create the legislature that is by far the largest in any democracy in the world, resulting in a body that will be unwieldy andunworkable.…”
Trinamool member Kalyan Banerjee said it was unfair to convene the special session of Parliament when elections were imminent in Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
“This is an attack on democracy. This is not a level playing field,” he said.
Kalyan accused the BJP of doublespeak on women’s empowerment, underlining how poorly women are represented among the party’s lawmakers and office-bearers, particularly in comparison with Trinamool.
“We are the bhakts of Kali and Durga…. You don’t even take Sita’s name. We say ‘Jai Siya Ram’, you say, ‘Jai Shri Ram’. We respect Sitaji, you have forgotten her,”he said.
DMK member Kanimozhi invoked Kali to counter the Prime Minister’s attack on her party on Thursday for turning out in black clothes for the special session.
She said the BJP was using India’s women as a human shield for its electoral ambitions. She demanded that women be provided reservation in legislatures from the existing pool of543 seats.
“Women are saying, ‘We are starving, give us a share of the loaf’…. You are saying, ‘No, we will bake a large cake and give you a small piece from that’,” she said.