Delimitation in garb of Bill a ploy to ensure BJP never loses polls: Akhilesh

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday accused Modi govt of using the Women’s Reservation Bill as a cover to hide the real purpose of the delimitation exercise, which, he claimed, is to redraw the boundaries of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies to ensure that BJP never loses elections.“It is difficult to understand the BJP and its decisions. When they told the people that SIR will be done to check deletion of votes, it turned out that in UP they got NRC done. Suppose a formal NRC exercise is announced in future, which new documents will the people be asked to produce other than those sought for SIR?” Akhilesh told reporters at Parliament building. “Now, under the garb of women reservation, they plan to get delimitation done as per their whims and fancies so that they never lose elections ,” he said.Reiterating that SP wants women’s reservation, Akhilesh said the problem is the way BJP has shown blatant disregard to the Constitution and democracy in India. “What type of delimitation does it want to do? Why does it want to demarcate constituencies to suit its preference? People have seen how they went about it in Assam and how delimitation was done in Jammu and Kashmir. They promised statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, Leh-Ladakh but never lived up to their commitment,” Akhilesh said.While Akhilesh attacked the BJP outside the House, his wife and SP’s Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav targeted Modi govt in the Lok Sabha, saying that SP was not in favour of the proposed amendment as it was unconstitutional in its current form.Participating in the debate on Women’s resrvation, Dimple said BJP was aware that its votes were slipping away, which is why the amendment bill has been tabled to spread confusion. “Your sole aim is to run away from the data that the caste census will throw up,” she said. Later, talking to reporters, she said SP wants the women’s bill be implemented in the form that it was passed in 2023. “First census should be done, then the delimitation process should follow before finally listing reserve seats to give women their rights,” she said.She questioned the BJP over the reason behind the hurry, saying that delimitation done on the basis of data collected 20 years ago will not help to give women their due. In his address, SP MP Anand Bhadauria said the fact that the women reservation bill passed in 2023 was left unnotified for all this while and was notified and made an Act yesterday night speaks volumes of BJP’s commitment towards women reservation.