'Real issue is delimitation, not women's reservation': Sonia Gandhi

She said, "The Prime Minister has resorted to writing op-eds, making appeals to political parties, and organising 'sammelans' and this 'underhand tactic' that reflects his 'one-upmanship' and my way or the highway approach' to decision-making."

New Delhi: Top Congress leader Sonia Gandhi took on the Modi government on Monday over the special sitting of Parliament this week, saying the "real issue" with the move is delimitation and not women's reservation and the reported proposal is "extremely dangerous" as well as an "assault" on the Constitution itself.

In a newspaper article, she said any delimitation involving an increase in the strength of the Lok Sabha "must be politically - and not just arithmetically - equitable".

Her article came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making appeals to the Opposition to support bills that the government wants to "bulldoze" in Parliament when the election campaign in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will be "at its peak".

"There can be only one reason for the extraordinary hurry, which is to derive political advantage and place the Opposition on the defensive," she said referring to the government rejecting the demand for an all-party meeting after the conclusion of ongoing round of Assembly polls.

She recalled that Parliament passed the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 unanimously in September 2023, which mandated 33 per cent quota for women in the Lok Sabha and Assemblies, scheduled to come into effect after the completion of the next Census and the Census-based delimitation process.

She said, "The Opposition had not asked for this condition. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, had forcefully demanded that the reservation provision be implemented from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections itself. For reasons best known to itself, the government did not agree."

"Now, we are given to understand that Article 334-A will be amended to make women's reservation applicable from 2029 itself. Why did it take the Prime Minister 30 months to make his U-turn? And why can he not wait a few weeks to convene the special session?" she said.

The Prime Minister has resorted to writing op-eds, making appeals to political parties, and organising 'sammelans' and this "underhand tactic" that reflects his "one-upmanship and his 'my way or the highway' approach" to decision-making, she said.

She also referred to Kharge's demand in Rajya Sabha for a quota for women belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and said, "The Monsoon session of Parliament will begin in mid-July. The heavens will not fall if the government were to call an all-party meeting after April 29, to discuss its proposals with the Opposition, allowing time for a public debate and then have the Constitution Amendment Bills considered in the Monsoon session."

There is simply no justification, except "narrative management during troubled times", for this tearing hurry to "bulldoze" extremely far-reaching changes to our polity, Gandhi said.

She called the process "deeply flawed and anti-democratic" and said, "Reservation for women is not the issue here. That has already been settled. The real issue is delimitation which, based on the information unofficially available, is extremely dangerous and an assault on the Constitution itself."