Sonia Gandhi
NEW DELHI: When the opposition politicians met in Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s chamber the day after, the attendance was full and the mood jubilant. And leaders lauded the INDIA bloc parties for standing together to defeat the BJP govt’s Constitution amendment bill on delimitation. The opposition believes that the BJP has been given a legislative jolt that hurts its carefully crafted aura of invincibility, built over the years by taking panchayat polls as seriously as the parliamentary elections. The opposition is confident that BJP’s bid to paint the rival parties as anti-women will not fly, given that the opposition put its argument that it is about “delimitation and gerrymandering” unambiguously before the people in the run-up to the Parliament sitting and then in the two days of Lok Sabha debate. A casual remark from Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi right at the outset – “why is everyone so quiet” – triggered a banter that led to member after member giving their take on the “victory” and its implications. A participant told TOI, “The bloc felt invigorated. There was much jubilation because the coordination and cohesion among allies have been re-established.” Besides Sonia, the full house saw Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena), Supriya Sule (NCP), Mahua Maji (JMM), N K Premachandran (RSP), Sandosh Kumar (CPI), K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Gaurav Gogoi, Manickam Tagore, Naseer Hussain (Congress), TMC’s Derek O’Brien and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Mian Altaf Ahmad (NC) among others. The opposition believes while it has given a shock to the BJP, it should now be careful to keep up the messaging that the defeated bill pertained to delimitation that would have hurt the country. It was specifically suggested by many that they should avoid the BJP’s trap of it being about women’s reservation. Since many INDIA bloc parties are in election campaigns and also fighting against each other, it was suggested they should hold public events separately to explain the issue to people. The alliance decided to eschew any joint show on the subject. As part of neutralising the BJP’s campaign, the opposition will now press for the implementation of the 2023 Act – Nari Vandan Adhiniyam. That it was notified for implementation this week in the middle of the debate in Parliament has only put the Act in focus. As part of the pressure, the opposition parties may write to PM Modi to operationalise the law for implementation from 2029 elections.
