New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI) BJP leader Tejasvi Surya on Thursday said Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s suggestion to link delimitation with the state’s GDP was “impractical,” and could lead to a situation where Mukesh Ambani will have 1 lakh votes, while people like him will have only one vote.
Participating in the discussion on the bills to tweak women’s quota law in the Lok Sabha, Surya asserted that delimitation is not just a democratic imperative but also a constitutional duty while slamming Congress for its opposition to proposed amendments.
With the new proposals, there would be “more seats to all states, more representation based on one vote, one value principle… it is the most practical, genius solution,” he said.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women’s quota law and two other bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The two other bills are the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to form the Delimitation Commission and implement the proposed amended women’s quota law in the Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.
Surya said the Congress has proposed three alternatives — not to change the existing number of 543 seats, a hybrid model of linking a state’s population with Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and the degressive proportionality model of Europe.
Telangana chief minister has made the proposal for an interesting hybrid model of linking the population of the state along with the GSDP, the state’s per capita contribution, he said.
“…this proposal is laughable at the best and impractical at the worst.
“If you will say that the vote of a voter in Telangana is more than the value of a voter in the state of Bihar, you are defeating the constitutional principle of one value one vote…Will the rich have more vote (value),” he asked.
“If you take this argument further, Mukesh Ambani will have 1 lakh votes and somebody like us will have only 1 vote,” Surya said.
Citing the fluctuating nature of GSDP, he said, “Suppose you are going to link delimitation and GSDP of a state, will Telangana and other states’ number of seats keep getting fluctuating?” “This year, monsoon is good, so Telangana will have two extra seats. Next year, Tamil Nadu had bad rainfall; therefore, GSDP fell, and Tamil Nadu will lose two seats,” the BJP leader said while taking a dig at Reddy’s suggestion.
For South India and smaller states that have controlled population, there cannot be a “better deal”, and this is the “best deal”, Surya said, referring to the bills amid concerns that the proposed delimitation exercise would reduce the proportionate representation of southern states in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP leader said that this was a “misleading and systematic propaganda” by some members of the opposition to mislead people in South India.
“If at all there was an ounce of injustice to South India in the provisions that the government has brought to the Parliament, I, as a proud Kannadiga, would be the first to oppose the proposal,” he said.
Making a case for the Census 2011-linked delimitation exercise, Surya said that if the projected 2027 population is taken, then the number of Lok Sabha seats in the state will reduce to 14 from 20 now.
Citing such a scenario, the BJP leader took a dig at the Congress, saying that its members, including K C Venugopal, will not have a seat.
The proposals in the bill will protect the existing seats, and the number of seats will also increase, he asserted.
Listing out the Modi government’s efforts in implementing the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme and scrapping of Article 370, Surya said the government does not believe in the politics of postponement but in solving the problems of the past.
The latest proposals would ensure the ‘one vote, one value’ principle, Surya said as he refuted Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi’s remarks that the bills were aimed not at women’s reservation but to get delimitation done through the back door.
Accusing the opposition of shedding crocodile tears regarding the delimitation proposal, Surya claimed that the way Congress divided Andhra Pradesh was in a worse fashion than what the British did with the partition of India and Pakistan.
As concerns persist about devolution of funds from the Centre to southern states, an issue that has been repeatedly raised by various opposition parties, Surya claimed that in the last ten years, South India has enjoyed greater support for development from the Centre and that fund devolution to the southern states has increased by at least 250 per cent in the given period compared to the previous ten years.
While speaking in the discussion, he alleged that Congress sides with “tukde, tukde” and DMK speaks of separatism. “We abhor, reject your politics”.
If the UPA and opposition vote against these most practical, constitutional and inclusive proposals, the women of this country will never forgive, he said.
In response to Surya’s criticism that DMK speaks of separatism, the party’s leader A Raja said the BJP member should not teach them nationalism. PTI RAM AMJ AMJ
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