Karnataka Minister Sharan Prakash Patil on Wednesday expressed his concerns over the proposed delimitation process and demanded that the Centre should protect the number of seats in the south if they want to do the delimitation.
After the all-party meeting on delimitation, Patil told ANI, "The BJP government is not comfortable with the southern states because they don't have numbers in the south. They are trying to do this thing. If they have to be fair, they should protect the number of seats in the south if they want to do the delimitation. He also argued that the number of seats in the Southern states would be affected on account of the delimitationn "The southern states will be affected by this because their representation in the parliament might not go down, but will not proportionately increase. The increase in the number of seats in the southern state should increase proportionately to the seats existing...," he said. Replying to a query, he said, "BJP has the agenda of nationalism in their slogans only but not in their actions. They don't work in the public interest. They have a hidden agenda of RSS, which is only protective to the minimal 5-20 per cent of the upper caste of this country..." Earlier, the all-party meeting presided over by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin passed a resolution requesting PM Modi to give assurance in the parliament that if delimitation is done, it should be based on the 1971 population census from 2026 to the next 30 years. 64 parties were called for today's all-party meeting on Constituency Delimitation, in which 58 parties (including organisations) participated. As per the resolution, "This all-party meeting unanimously strongly opposes delimitation based on population, which is seen as a big threat to India's federal structure and Tamil Nadu and other Southern States representation." The BJP, Tamil Maanila Congress, Pudhiya Tamilagam, Pudhiya Needhi Katchi, and Naam Tamilar Katchi did not participate in the all-party meeting. (ANI)
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