Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday termed the proposed delimitation exercise “political demonetisation” and criticised the Centre for linking implementation of women’s reservation to the expansion of Parliament and constituency redrawing based on the Census.Participating in a Lok Sabha debate on three bills related to amendments in the women’s reservation law and the constitution of a Delimitation Commission, Tharoor said the government had unnecessarily tied a widely supported reform to a highly contentious political process.“Delimitation will turn out to be political demonetisation. Don’t do it,” Tharoor said.He said there was near-unanimous political support across parties for women’s reservation and argued that the measure should be implemented immediately without being made dependent on delimitation.“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.Tharoor referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks supporting women’s representation, but said the proposal had been burdened with unnecessary conditions.“The prime minister says he has brought ‘nari shakti’ the gift of justice but he has wrapped it in barbed wire, tethering the implementation of women’s reservation to the expansion of Parliament, to numbers from the 2011 census and an exercise of delimitation… Why must we entangle a moral imperative with a demographic minefield,” he asked.He said women’s reservation was ready to be enforced on the basis of the current parliamentary strength and did not require waiting for a future restructuring of constituencies.“Women’s reservation, he said, is ready for harvest and can and should be implemented immediately based on existing parliamentary strength.”Warning of the wider political impact of redrawing constituencies, Tharoor said delimitation was not merely an administrative process but a shift in the balance of political power.“Delimitation is not a mere bureaucratic rearranging of maps, it is a profound shift in political power that is intended….Any delimitation exercise is fraught with complications that could tear at the very fabric of our federalism,” he said.He also criticised the speed with which the government was moving the legislation, comparing it to the rushed rollout of demonetisation.“You have proposed delimitation with such haste, the same haste that you showed on demonetisation. Unfortunately, we all know what damage that did to the country. Delimitation will turn out to be political demonetisation. Don’t do it,” Tharoor said.Tharoor added that the opposition supported the principle of women’s reservation but believed it should not be made contingent on a future delimitation process. He called for wider consultations with all political parties, saying both women’s representation and delimitation carried significant consequences for India’s electoral structure and federal balance.The debate took place after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, aimed at modifying the women’s quota law, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday following a division of votes.Two additional ordinary bills, the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, were also introduced to facilitate implementation of the proposed amended women’s quota law in the Union Territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.
