New Delhi, April 16
Congress Member of Parliament and General Secretary in-charge Communications, Jairam Ramesh has said that uncharacteristically, the non-grihasthi Prime Minister delivered only a 40 minute speech in the Lok Sabha today. “Characteristically, he addressed every matter other than the key issue that is actually at stake in the special session of the Parliament – delimitation. He didn’t address a single concern raised around it. The PM repeatedly called for bipartisanship and the unanimous passage of these bills. Unfortunately, his government has done anything but inspire bipartisan confidence. The Prime Minister claimed that the Government has met every party on this issue. The truth is that it has rejected the repeated calls by the Leader of Opposition to have an all-party meeting after the conclusion of the election campaign in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal on 29th April. The Government has not formally or informally consulted a single State Government, even as it proceeds to undertake delimitation at both the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly-level. The Government has refused to commit in writing in the law any details on how the delimitation will proceed and has instead introduced bills that threaten to drastically rewrite the composition of the Lok Sabha,” he said.
Ramesh further said that by labelling the grave issues raised by several sitting Chief Ministers and Members of Parliament as ‘technical bahanebaazi,’ the Prime Minister has shown a willful blindness to the concerns of several states in the South, East, Northeast, and the North. “The legitimate anxieties of the people in these regions have been waved off in the most callous manner. The people of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will undoubtedly respond to this insult at the ballot box later this month,” he added.
Ramesh also said that the Prime Minister also conveniently brought up his own caste background in his speech today. “But he stopped short of any engagement with the issue that the Opposition has consistently raised – in September 2023 and today. We must introduce a quota within quota for women from the Other Backward Classes. But the Prime Minister is willfully deaf to this demand, even as he flaunts his identity for political expediency,” he said.
Ramesh pointed out that the Prime Minister also acknowledged implicitly the political consciousness that has seeped into women across the country due to the reservation for women in local bodies, while adding, “What he omitted to mention is that this revolution at the grassroots was the fulfillment of former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi’s vision”.
The senior Congress leaders affirmed that the commitment of the Indian National Congress to the cause of women cannot be challenged. “But that is not the issue at stake today. The issue at stake is of the Constitution of India. In this insidious attempt to subvert the constitution and to hijack the system, the Modi Government will undoubtedly face defeat at 4 PM tomorrow in the Lok Sabha. The division of votes upon the introduction of the Bill was only a trailer,” he concluded.
