Upping the ante against the Centre, veteran Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said on Monday that the real issue with government's call for a special session of the Parliament is delimitation and not women's reservation. Sonia, who is Congress' Parliamentary Party chairperson, said the delimitation must be politically equitable in increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha.
She even called the reported proposal of delimitation "extremely dangerous" and an "assault on Constitution", and alleged that the Centre under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership aims to delay the caste census. She also criticised the government for calling a special session for amendments to the Women's Reservation Act at a time when assembly polls are underway in four states and a union territory (UT).
"There can be only one reason for the extraordinary hurry, which is to derive political advantage and place the Opposition on the defensive," she said in an article in a leading English daily, while claiming that PM Modi is being "economical with the truth".
The senior leader said the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 was passed unanimously by the Parliament in September 2023, highlighting that the law introduced Article 334-A in the Constitution which mandated one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas, scheduled to come into effect after the completion of the next Census and the Census-based delimitation process.
"The Opposition had not asked for this condition. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, had forcefully demanded that the reservation provision be implemented from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections itself. For reasons best known to itself, the government did not agree," she said.
"Now, we are given to understand that Article 334-A will be amended to make women's reservation applicable from 2029 itself. Why did it take the Prime Minister 30 months to make his U-turn? And why can he not wait a few weeks to convene the special session?" she added.
In her article, Sonia further said PM Modi is organising sammelans and making appeals to political parties, but this shows his "one-upmanship" and "my way or the highway" approach. She also said the Congress had earlier called for a caste census, but PM Modi used to criticise it; although he himself has announced it now.
"It is clear, therefore, that the propaganda that a caste census will delay the publication of the Census 2027 is just not true. In fact. the Prime Minister's real intention now is to further delay and derail the caste census," she alleged.
Sonia's remarks comes just before the three-day Parliament special session from April 16 to 18 during which amendments to the 'Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam' will be brought for its implementation in 2029.
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