New Delhi, Apr 17 (PTI) Union minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Friday described the DMK’s arguments against bills to tweak the women-quota law as “fear mongering” and said they do not represent the views of the southern states.
The DMK, which is in power in Tamil Nadu, has been vehemently opposing the bills and have raised concerns that they would adversely impact the southern states.
During a discussion on the bills in the Lok Sabha, Kumaraswamy, who has been the chief minister of Karnataka twice, said the Congress is not prepared to handle the massive change and that the party has lost touch with people and does not know how to cope with this transformation.
Terming the DMK’s arguments “fear mongering”, the heavy industries minister said those represent the party’s own views and not that of the southern states.
“The Congress, which has lost the capacity to think independently, lost its ability to develop its own arguments is now being led by the DMK’s narrative,” he alleged, adding that the Opposition under the Congress has got into the habit of scaring people and creating a doomsday scenario about everything the government says.
Kumaraswamy also said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who he claimed does not understand the head or tail of caste-based reservation, had argued at one point of time that reservation should be proportional to the size of the caste population but alleged that he does not want to extend the same argument to Parliamentary representation.
“Rahul Gandhi called himself the younger brother of (Tamil Nadu Chief Minister) M K Stalin sometime back but it appears that after the seat-sharing dispute, the elder brother is angry with the younger brother. The younger brother is still looking for some love from the older brother…,” he said.
The Janata Dal (Secular) leader was making an apparent reference to the differences between the Congress and the DMK on seat-sharing for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls.
During the discussion, DMK leader A Raja said in the name of women’s rights, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre is going to promote discrimination, the north-south divide and “one nation, one language, one culture”.
He alleged that the government as well as the prime minister and the home minister are trying to undermine Parliament.
Union minister and Apna Dal (Soneylal) leader Anupriya Patel told the House that this is an opportunity to create history and urged all members to come together for it.
Amid concerns raised by some southern states, the minister of state for health and family welfare emphasised that there would be 50 per cent proportionate increase in the number of seats in each state and asked the Congress why it did not implement women’s reservation in the existing 543 seats of the Lok Sabha.
Congress member Hibi Eden said the bills are a blatant attack on the Constitution and on the country’s cooperative federal structure, and asked why delimitation is not defined in the bill.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal accused the government of bulldozing bills and opposed linking women’s reservation with delimitation.
Her party is in support of 33 per cent reservation for women but the government is shifting goalposts, she said.
Mohmad Haneefa, an independent member from Ladakh, said the Union Territory should have two Lok Sabha seats, while Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) leader Chandrashekhar called for reservation in seats for the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
United People’s Party (Liberal) leader Joyanta Basumatary and YSRCP member Gumma Thanuja Rani also spoke during the discussion. PTI RAM RC
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