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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay is all set to chair a meeting of MPs of the state to deliberate on the union government's proposed delimitation exercise and Parliamentarians belonging to the DMK are set to boycott it. Vijay is scheduled to chair the meeting at Kalaivanar Arangam here at 3 pm on Saturday to deliberate on the proposal of the Centre to carry out delimitation and its likely impact on the state. Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary M Sai Kumar had sent separate invitations to the MPs on August 6 and 7, government sources said. DMK sources said their MPs will not take part in the discussion to be led by the chief minister. Further, they said that the party is "sticking to its stand that it will participate if the government convenes an all-party meeting on the Mekedatu issue." A party MP told PTI that inviting MPs is a flawed move and the government in the first place must have invited the party's top leadership. "The MPs have a mandate to follow the party line. This me
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the opposition parties defeated the delimitation bill in the Parliament on Friday to defend the "idea of India." Addressing a poll rally at Ponneri here, he said the BJP-led government at the Centre brought a new bill on April 16, and said they were trying to pass the women's bill, which he said was passed in 2023. "In the so-called Women's Bill, delimitation was hidden. The idea was to reduce Tamil Nadu's representation in the Union of India... the delimitation move by BJP was to weaken the strength of southern states, small states, north eastern states," he alleged. "We defeated in Parliament, a bill in which delimitation was hidden; we defeated it to defend the idea of India." Rahul added that India that is Bharat, is a union of states, and every single state should have a voice, be free to express itself, and protect its tradition.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday accused the Centre of conspiring to change the federal structure of the country in the garb of women's reservation, asserting that the defeat of its bill in the Lok Sabha to amend the women's quota law was a victory for the Constitution as well as opposition unity. She also demanded that the government implement the Women's Reservation Act of 2023 on the current strength of the Lok Sabha. "What happened yesterday was a big win for democracy. The conspiracy to change the federal structure (of the country) was defeated. It was a victory for the Constitution, opposition unity, and the country," the Congress general secretary said at a press conference. "When Home Minister Amit Shah was speaking in the Lok Sabha on Friday, he said the Congress will not be able to sit on the treasury benches for years, which shows their mindset," Priyanka said. "The whole conspiracy was to stay in power. They thought that if delimitation is not done now,
Delimitation will turn out to be "political demonetisation", senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Friday while slamming the government for linking women's reservation with the expansion of Parliament. Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha on the three bills introduced for amendments in the women's quota law and setting up a delimitation commission, Tharoor said linking women's reservation with delimitation is to hold the aspirations of Indian women hostage to "one of the most contentious and complex" administrative exercises in the country's history. "Today we stand at a threshold where there is near unanimous political consensus in favour of women's reservation. Every major party realises that the time for tokenism is over and the era of collective partnership must begin and yet I am finding myself deeply perturbed by the legislative exercise before us," he said. "The prime minister says he has brought 'nari shakti' the gift of justice but he has wrapped it in barbed