Chennai, Aug 12 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, Narayanan Thirupathy, on Wednesday remarked that the DMK and the TVK are “sailing in the same boat” regarding the Delimitation issue.
His reaction comes after the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a special resolution moved by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay urging the Centre to permanently freeze the strength of the Lok Sabha at 543 and protect the existing distribution of Parliamentary seats among states amid concerns over a future delimitation exercise.
The DMK has, however, supported the resolution.
Speaking to IANS, Thirupathy said: “Both DMK and TVK are sailing in the same boat, that is what we are saying, because the DMK is totally confused. First, what they said was that not even a single seat should be lost. Now it is being assured that more than 20 seats will be there for Tamil Nadu.”
Giving examples of leadership from the eastern, southern and western parts of the country, the BJP leader said: “The President of India (Droupadi Murmu) is from Odisha, the Eastern part of the country. The Vice-President of the country (C.P. Radhakrishnan) is from the Southern part, particularly from Tamil Nadu, and the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) is from the Western part, that is Gujarat. So, no North Indian is occupying the highest post in the country.”
BJP MLA Bhojarajan said that the party has opposed the special resolution introduced by Chief Minister Vijay, saying that “delimitation is required for more number of public representatives”, so that they can serve the society better.
He emphasised that calling the delimitation issue as “north-south conflict” is not good.
“We are one nation despite having different cultures, languages and so we should not make excuses and allegations that Central government will create divisions between North and South (India). That is old story,” he told IANS.
However, DMK Spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan opined that delimitation “isn’t necessary”.
“We were against delimitation because, on various grounds, the BJP government wanted to increase the number of seats to 850, which we are totally against. We wanted the existing constituencies to continue after Delimitation. We supported the resolution because Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states will stand to lose from the Delimitation exercise,” he told IANS.
Elangovan said that delimitation is “unfair” because if it is introduced, all the four Southern states will get around 170 MPs, and the remaining Northern states will get 680 MPs.
“The Southern states will be ignored by the government, whoever comes into power,” the DMK leader alleged.
Meanwhile, PMK MLA Sowmiya Anbumani, whose party opposed the anti-delimitation resolution, recalled that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had announced in the Parliament that the fresh delimitation exercise will increase the absolute number of Lok Sabha seats for every state by around 50 per cent while protecting the proportional share of Southern states.
“When a Minister makes an announcement in Parliament, it is an assurance to citizens. So, we have to take it that way,” she told reporters.
–IANS
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