Anglo-Indians count: Privilege motion against RS Prasad

Congress MP Hibi Eden on Tuesday submitted a privilege motion against Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accusing him of misleading the House on the number of Anglo-Indians in the country while introducing a Constitution Amendment Bill that extended the reservation of SCs and STs and removed provisions of the nomination of Anglo-Indians from Parliament and state Assemblies.

Eden, who represents Ernakulam Lok Sabha seat, which has a number of Anglo-Indians, said the Constitution (126th Amendment) Bill is "directly and expressly violative of the ethos of the Constitution" and has "silenced the rights" of the community, which was "historically marginalised and protected by the State". They now stand "shorn of every right with which they were shielded," he said.

When Eden mentioned about his motion, Speaker Om Birla said it was under his consideration.

Referring to Prasad's remarks that there were only 296 Anglo-Indians in the country while introducing the Bill, he said it was "far from assessment".

"The statistics which the minister had stated in the House is farthest from reality as data reveals otherwise that the total population of Anglo-Indian community as on 2017 stands at 3.47 lakh and my state, Kerala, alone accounts for 80,000 Anglo-Indians," he said.

Eden argued that the statistics provided by Prasad were "erroneous and factually incompetent" to defend the government's moves to revoke the extension of representation of the Anglo-Indian community.

"Thus he has misled the House and its members to promulgate a discriminatory amendment," he said.

Article 334 had laid down provisions for reserving the seats for SCs and STs and nomination of Anglo-Indians to Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, which shall cease to be in effect on January 25, 2020, if not extended further.

Now, the government has introduced a bill to extend the reservation benefits to SCs and STs by another ten years while leaving out Anglo-Indians' nomination to Lok Sabha and State Assemblies.

Prasad had said in Lok Sabha on Monday on Anglo-Indians, "I wanted to tell the House that we have not closed the discussions on this. I want to make this clear. So, it is not proper to raise this".