Southern states will get a better deal : Tejasvi Surya on Constitution amendment bill

New Delhi: Defending the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, which seeks to amend the women's reservation law, along with two other related bills, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Thursday said that southern states and smaller states “could not have got a better deal” under the proposed framework.

Speaking during the debate in the Lok Sabha, the Bengaluru South MP accused Opposition parties, particularly southern regional parties like the DMK, of running a “misleading propaganda” campaign. 

“Why are Opposition parties and some regional parties of the South making so much noise? The tears they are shedding are crocodile tears,” he said.

Surya emphasised that southern states stand to gain more seats after delimitation and urged that the exercise should not be viewed as a disadvantage to the South. 

He highlighted the Modi government’s decisive approach to long-pending issues, citing the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) and the abrogation of Article 370 as examples of its commitment to solving problems rather than postponing them.

United Andhra Pradesh bifurcation : 

Strongly opposing the “hybrid model” on delimitation and Lok Sabha seat expansion proposed by Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, Surya argued that it would violate the fundamental democratic principle of “one person, one vote, one value.”

In a sharp attack on the Congress-led UPA government, he said the division of Andhra Pradesh by the Congress-led UPA government had been handled worse than the partition of India. 

“The Congress-led UPA government divided the undivided Andhra Pradesh into AP and Telangana. The partition of AP and Telangana was done in a worse fashion than the British did during the partition of India and Pakistan. This is the kind of legacy that they have,” he said.

Surya's  remarks kicked up row with both Congress and BRS parties in Telangana criticised and demanded his apology.