Chennai, March 22:
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Saturday announced that the state will vehemently oppose the unfair, faulty and undemocratic delimitation being done by the BJP led Union government to muzzle the voice of the opposition parties.
“This shameful act of BJP to reduce the seats in the states where they can’t win is undemocratic and we won’t allow the saffron party to succeed in its nefarious designs to weaken the democracy”, said the Chief Minister while participating in a conference organized by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin.
The Chief Minister said that this arbitrary move of the Union government is just aimed at eliminating the opposition parties by reducing the seats where BJP is not able to win. He said that contrary to this BJP is trying its level best to enhance the seats in Hindi belt where it gets most of the seats. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that it is ironic that in the name of population density the seats are being reduced in South Indian seats.
The Chief Minister said that as a fact of matter the southern seats are being punished for zealously implementing population control programs. He said that it will not be a surprise if the BJP enhances the tally of seats in Uttar Pradesh from 80 to more than 140 after the delimitation. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the idea is to bifurcate or even trifurcate the seats which are the stronghold of the saffron party and to carve out more winning seats from it.
Citing an example, the Chief Minister said that the Lok Sabha seat earlier represented by him was Sangrur which comprised three districts Sangrur, Barnala and Malerkotla. He said that supposing if this seat was monopoly of BJP then as per their current designs they would have trifurcated this seat in three and carved out Sangrur, Barnala and Malerkotla as separate Lok Sabha seats. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that this is how the BJP intends to increase the Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850 or more to consolidate its position.
The Chief Minister said that the BJP wants to eliminate the belts where they are weak and enhance the seats where they are strong. However, he said that this is intolerable, unwarranted and undesirable adding that it will be opposed tooth and nail. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that power mad BJP is trying to weaken the democracy in the country but this will never be allowed at any cost.
The Chief Minister said that the BJP wants to humiliate Punjab, which has made enormous sacrifices in the national freedom struggle, through this delimitation. He said that currently the state has 13 Lok Sabha seats through which the share of Punjab in the temple of democracy is 2.39%. However, Bhagwant Singh Mann said that BJP intends to increase Lok Sabha seats in the state to 18 but it will reduce the percentage of state’s share to 2.11%.
The Chief Minister said that this will not be accepted as the share of the state which has 90% sacrifices for freedom of the country should not be reduced. He said that rather than the share should be increased or kept the same by enhancing the seats to 21. Meanwhile, Bhagwant Singh Mann assured fulsome support and cooperation to all the like minded parties for opposing this draconian move in form of delimitation adding he invited all the parties to hold next conference in any city of Punjab.
