New Delhi: Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Friday, asserted that the government’s push for the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill was a “panic reaction”, linking it to an unexplained “number 16” that, he said, held the answer to the timing and urgency behind the move.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha—where his remarks drew repeated objections from Speaker Om Birla and the treasury benches—Gandhi said that while watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on Thursday, he found Modi “low on energy” and unable to engage, attributing it to the pressure of pushing through a Bill that “everybody knew was a mistake”.
“The whole answer to the riddle is in the number 16, you are going to find out very soon,” Gandhi said, adding that he knew “much more” than he was revealing. On its social media accounts, the Congress suggested that Gandhi’s remarks could be linked to the Epstein files.
Participating in the debate on the Bill, Gandhi said the prime minister “needed to send this message again that he is pro-women”. “Why he is doing that I leave it to your imagination. But the powers that be know exactly why he is doing it,” the Congress MP said.
In his speech, Gandhi also alleged that the proposed legislation was aimed at redrawing India’s electoral map rather than empowering women. He sharpened his social justice pitch, criticising the government’s attempt to carry out delimitation and roll out women’s reservation before the completion of the ongoing population census, as part of which caste would also be counted.
“Amit Shah ji says the caste census has begun and repeatedly claims that households do not have castes. The real question is whether the caste census will be used to ensure representation in Parliament… It is an attempt to avoid giving power and representation to my OBC brothers and sisters, and instead to take power away from them,” he said.
Rahul reiterated the Opposition’s apprehension that the Bill could skew parliamentary representation in favour of the more populous northern states, putting the southern states at a disadvantage.
“In effect, the government is telling the southern states, the northeastern states, and smaller states that, for the BJP to remain in power, their representation will be reduced. This is nothing short of an anti-national act. The current Bill is an attempt to change the electoral map of India, using and hiding behind India’s women,” he said.