Beleaguered by unrelenting protests from the Opposition, student and youth organisations and civil society groups, the Centre has reignited rumours of another attempt to push the contentious Delimitation Bill and related legislation through Parliament.
Centre may call special sittings to push Bills
While the government has not officially commented on the matter, sources say Parliament could be called for a three-day sitting “any time after Dussehra”. With the monsoon session of Parliament yet to be prorogued following its August 13 sine die adjournment, additional sittings of the two Houses can be called without a fresh notification from the President’s office for a special session.
Also Read: Why delimitation Bills appear more ominous than originally thought
On Friday, as reports about the Centre’s fresh bid gained momentum, Congress president and Rajya Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Noting that the non-prorogation of Parliament even 64 days after the sine die adjournment of the monsoon session created an “unprecedented” scenario, Kharge reminded the Prime Minister that the Centre’s previous attempt to pass the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and the Delimitation Bill had failed by “a decisive margin” on April 17.
Kharge renews demand for all-party meeting
The Congress president had subsequently written to Modi on July 16 and August 27, requesting an all-party meeting to be convened to discuss the Centre’s delimitation proposals.
Stating that he was reiterating his request for a fourth time, the first being on April 11, Kharge wrote, “Please convene an all-party meeting to have a detailed discussion on your new proposals before they are finalised for consideration of Parliament… please do not, once again, try to bulldoze a far-reaching Constitutional Amendment Bill (sic) through Parliament as you attempted earlier and that met its well-deserved fate”.
Also Read: Explained: DMK’s 3 conditions that could make or break Delimitation Bill
A senior cabinet minister told The Federal that the Prime Minister is unlikely to concede Kharge’s request for an all-party meeting and that “any discussion on delimitation proposals; what will be the formula for increasing seats, which Census will be taken as base and other issues, can be done in Parliament… the government has always been ready to debate, last time we debated for two days and we are ready for it again”.
The minister added, “The Congress has made it clear that it doesn’t support delimitation and it doesn’t want the Lok Sabha seats to be increased… why is it demanding an all-party meeting if it will attend only to say it won’t support the Bills.”
Government claims support talks are ongoing
Asked if the government had initiated any new discussions with other Opposition parties since the monsoon session was adjourned sine die and if it was confident of securing a two-thirds majority to pass the constitution amendment, the minister said, “discussions are always happening, there are other parties in the Opposition which are reasonable and their leaders have had discussions in the past also… you will see the numbers when the Bills are taken up.”
If the Centre indeed pushes ahead with its Bills, it would provide Modi and his BJP a chance to divert attention from the ongoing and steadily growing protests against the mass disenfranchisement of citizens during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and on the demand for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC).
Earlier bid failed to secure two-thirds majority
The Centre’s previous attempt to bulldoze Bills for increasing the Lok Sabha’s strength to 850 MPs (Constitution 131st Amendment Bill) as a precursor for operationalizing the already enacted women’s reservation law and gerrymandering existing parliamentary and assembly constituencies across the country (Delimitation Bill) had fallen flat in April as the government could not muster the two-thirds majority required for amending the Constitution.
In July, when Parliament reconvened for its monsoon session, the government actively fanned speculations that the intertwined Bills would be introduced for passing once again, following some changes. The BJP and its NDA coalition had seen a sharp increase in its legislative tally in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the preceding two months.
Also Read: Inside the delimitation battle: What Centre wants and why Opposition is resisting
In May, weeks after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill was defeated in Lok Sabha by a united Opposition, seven of Aam Aadmi Party’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs defected to the BJP. Less than two months later, 20 of 28 Lok Sabha MPs from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress decided to join the obscure Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) and announced their support for the ruling NDA coalition, while six of nine Lok Sabha MPs from Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena-UBT defected to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, a BJP ally.
The mass defections pushed the NDA’s tally in Lok Sabha to over 320 MPs (the ruling coalition had secured 298 votes for the Constitution 131st Amendment Bill in April against the required 362) when Parliament convened for the first day of the monsoon session on July 20.
While the NDA was still 40 MPs short of the two-thirds majority mark, senior BJP leaders had, at the time, expressed confidence of securing support of the DMK’s 22 MPs as the Dravidian party had, by then, had a bitter falling out with the Congress and distanced itself from the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.
Youth protests derailed July push
However, the Cockroach Janata Party-led youth agitation on July 20 and the Delhi Police’s brutal crackdown against the protestors triggered a political storm that derailed the entire monsoon session and, with it, the Centre’s plan to bulldoze the twin Bills through Parliament.
The Centre’s renewed attempt to bring the Bills to Parliament later this month comes at a time that is no less volatile than the situation in July and August. The protests in July and August pressed for Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s accountability over the violent police crackdown against youth agitating on the issue of exam paper leaks. The Centre is currently besieged by a pitched agitation against the SIR and the partisan conduct of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.
Also Read: DMK shapes its ‘support’ for Delimitation Bill around a single point: seat freeze
Revelations by The Indian Express about Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi repeatedly dissenting against Kumar’s arbitrary decisions on the SIR have kept the national capital on the boil since September 23. The Opposition’s INDIA bloc, Left-wing student outfits such as the AISA and SFI, pressure group CJP and civil society organisations have been pressing for Kumar’s resignation, scrapping of the SIR and restoration to electoral rolls of the over 13 crore individuals disenfranchised by the SIR so far. A series of fresh petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court on these issues, while flash protests on a daily basis have kept the Centre on tenterhooks.
Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s success in merging the INDIA bloc’s agitation with those led by Left student leaders like Neha Bora and Aishe Ghosh and civil society groups has visibly rattled the Modi regime. Though the BJP and its allies continue to brazenly defend Kumar and the poll panel, ruling out any possibility of the CEC’s resignation, the near daily reversal of multiple SIR-related decisions taken over the past year betrays the regime’s nervousness.
Fresh bid comes amid anti-SIR agitation
Against this backdrop, speculation has begun afresh about the Centre’s renewed bid to bulldoze the two Bills through Parliament.
Numerically, sources in the government say not much has changed “for or against” the NDA in terms of its combined tally in either House of Parliament.
“Negotiations with the DMK and some other Opposition parties on delimitation had progressed well during the monsoon session, and the situation hasn’t changed much; in fact our numbers have gone up further because in Lok Sabha we have won the Nagaon by-election and in Rajya Sabha also new members have come. We could have actually passed these Bills in August, but the Opposition paralysed Parliament with disruptions, and we did not want to push such an important legislation without proper debate,” said a senior BJP MP.
Another Union minister who had previously been involved in back-channel negotiations with some Opposition parties expectedly dismissed suggestions that the new push for the Bills was meant to divert attention from the ongoing anti-SIR protests and create a wedge within the united Opposition.
Centre defends proposed delimitation formula
“There is nothing like that. The Congress sees a conspiracy in everything we do. Our concern is purely constitutional,” the Union minister said, adding, “The freeze on delimitation ends this year, and the new Census will be ready by early next year. If we do not change the delimitation formula now, the current delimitation formula as per the Constitution will be activated immediately after this year ends and the new Census figures come in, which would mean redrawing constituencies based only on population figures mentioned in the 2027 Census.”
Also Read: Delimitation Bill: Why Stalin and Akhilesh hold the key to BJP’s gameplan
“The entire opposition to delimitation from parties like DMK and others is that population alone should not be the criteria for delimitation, and that is why our home minister proposed a uniform 50 per cent rise in seats for every state. It is the fairest solution and will ensure that southern states, which stand to lose seats if the current constitutional scheme is applied, end up with more seats under our formula,” the minister explained.
The Congress and several of its INDIA bloc allies, however, are convinced that the Centre is trying to push for delimitation as it would enable a countrywide gerrymandering exercise, which the BJP can weaponise, through the Kumar-led Election Commission, to redraw existing constituencies to the saffron party’s electoral advantage.