Delimitation being linked with women’s reservation to portray Opposition parties as anti-women: DMK

Chennai, Aug 29 (IANS) DMK spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan on Saturday accused the NDA government at the Centre of trying to link delimitation with women’s reservation to create the impression that those opposing the proposed delimitation are also against women’s reservation.

Speaking to IANS, Elangovan said, “They want to club delimitation with women’s reservation because if anyone opposes delimitation, they will portray them as being against women’s reservation. This is a tactic being used by the BJP. We are not against women’s reservation. In fact, when the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed earlier, we supported it, and all parties supported it. It was originally introduced by the Congress party.”

“Neither the Congress nor the DMK is against women’s reservation. But now they want to create the impression that the DMK and Congress are opposed to it. Our opposition is to the proposed delimitation and the number of seats they are suggesting,” he added.

Reacting to former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s allegations that the BJP used the Election Commission of India (ECI) to “hijack” the last Assembly elections, and that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was being used to remove lakhs of names from electoral rolls, Elangovan said such allegations were “very obvious”.

“That is very obvious. Immediately after the elections, 4,000 EVMs were kept in a godown, and the godown was burned down. How can anyone file a petition when there is no evidence? The evidence has been wiped out. This shows that their intention was to manipulate the election, and they have successfully done so,” he told IANS.

On the issue of social justice and reservation, Elangovan said all aspects of social justice should be taken into consideration while determining Backward Classes.

“In my view, only state governments can determine who belongs to the Backward Classes, because every state has a different set of backward communities. For example, in Punjab, the reservation for OBCs is only 4 per cent. This is because the social composition of the state is different, and the reservation largely benefits the Hindu population, which forms a smaller proportion of Punjab’s population,” he said.

Reacting to the controversy surrounding the publication of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s memoirs, Elangovan said that her memoirs would naturally mention political opponents, including the BJP and the RSS.

“Sonia Gandhi is a political leader and was the president of the Congress party. Her memoirs will definitely talk about the BJP and the RSS. That is the major issue the Congress is facing. Similarly, if someone writes a memoir about DMK leaders, they would certainly write about the RSS and BJP. Even Communist leaders, if they write their memoirs, would likely criticise the RSS and BJP,” he said.

–IANS

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