'Open attack' launched on democracy with Constitution amendment bill: Priyanka Gandhi in LS

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday said that the government began finishing off democracy by putting pressure on institutions, such as the Election Commission (EC) and the judiciary, but now, an "open attack" has been launched on democracy with the Constitution amendment bill.

In a Lok Sabha discussion on three bills introduced for amendments in the women's-quota law and setting up a delimitation commission, Priyanka Gandhi asked why can't the government give 33 per cent reservation to women on the current 543 seats of the Lok Sabha.

She said that the bill talks of increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats to up to 850 - to be done by a delimitation commission on the basis of the 2011 Census data.

"This seems fine on the surface but the real meaning comes to the fore when one carefully reads it. It smells of politics," she said.

The Congress leader said on reading the fine print, it shows that the three members of the delimitation commission will decide the fate of the states and their representation in Parliament.

"The government began finishing off democracy by putting pressure on institutions, such as the Election Commission, the judiciary, the media etc., but now, an open attack on democracy is being launched," Priyanka Gandhi said.

She asserted, "If this Constitution amendment bill is passed in Parliament, democracy will be finished in India."

She also narrated a background to the issue of women's reservation in legislative bodies.

"This issue is close to the heart of every woman. There is a background to this issue. The prime minister said this issue was blocked for 30 years. This was started by a person called Nehru. Not the Nehru they avoid so much but Motilal Nehru, who as the president of a committee prepared a list of 19 rights which were then passed as a resolution at the Karachi session of the Congress and formed the basis of giving women equal rights in Indian politics," Priyanka said.

She claimed that it was former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who had brought a bill for women's reservation in panchayats and nagarpalikas and finally, the bill for it was passed during the P V Narasimha Rao government of the Congress.

"Under the UPA, this was passed in the Rajya Sabha but a consensus could not be reached in the Lok Sabha. In 2018, Rahul Gandhi wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for women's reservation," she said.

Attacking Prime Minister Modi, she alleged 'it seems from the prime minister's address that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a champion of women's reservation'.

Urging BJP to be careful, she stated, "Any woman would tell you that women easily recognise those who try to mislead them."

Taking a dig at the BJP for the delimitation provisions in the bill. Priyanka said, "In 2023, when this law was passed, the Congress supported it and today also, the Congress is strongly in support of women's reservation. But the truth is that the debate is not on women's reservation. The bill that the government has brought has changed the direction of the debate."

The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women's-quota law was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after a division of votes.

Two ordinary bills -- the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended women's-quota law in the Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir -- were also introduced in the House.

(With PTI inputs)