New Delhi | Taking a swipe at Narendra Modi over his speech in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, the Congress said the prime minister addressed every matter other than the key issue of delimitation and showed "willful blindness" to the concerns of several states in the South, East, Northeast, and the North.
The Congress also claimed that the government's "insidious attempt" to subvert the Constitution and hijack the system will undoubtedly face defeat in the Lok Sabha when the three bills to amend the women's quota law and set up a delimitation commission are put to vote.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh, said that uncharacteristically, "the non-grihasthi prime minister" delivered only a 40-minute speech in the Lok Sabha.
"Characteristically, he addressed every matter other than the key issue that is actually at stake in the special session of Parliament – delimitation. He didn't address a single concern raised around it," Ramesh said.
The prime minister repeatedly called for bipartisanship and the unanimous passage of these bills but unfortunately, his government has done anything but inspire bipartisan confidence, Ramesh claimed.
"The prime minister claimed that the government met every party on this issue. But the truth is that it rejected 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 April 29," Ramesh said.
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 Assembly-level, he claimed.
"The government has refused to commit in writing any details on how the delimitation will proceed. It has instead introduced bills that threaten to drastically rewrite the composition of the Lok Sabha," Ramesh said.
Ramesh said by labelling the grave issues raised by several sitting chief ministers and MPs 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 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," the Congress leader said.
"The prime minister also conveniently brought up his own caste background in his speech. 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," Ramesh said.
The Congress leader said the prime minister also acknowledged implicitly the political consciousness that has seeped into women across the country due to the reservation for women in the local bodies.
"What he did not mention is that this revolution at the grassroots was the fulfillment of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's vision," Ramesh said.
He also said that the commitment of the Congress to the cause of women cannot be challenged, but that is not the issue at stake today.
"The issue at stake is 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 said.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women's quota law was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after a division of votes.
Two ordinary bills -- the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended women's quota law in the Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir -- were also introduced in the House.
The Bills were introduced after a fiery 40-minute debate following which the opposition pressed for division of votes to introduce the Constitutional (131st Amendment) Bill.
The Bill was later introduced with 251 members supporting it and 185 members voting against its introduction.
Voting on the three bills in Lok Sabha to amend the women's quota law and set up a delimitation commission will be held at 4 pm on Friday, according to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.