Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday criticised the proposed bills to amend Women's quota and set up a delimitation commission, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "brought ‘Nari Shakti’, wrapped in barbed wire" by linking their implementation.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha debate, Tharoor acknowledged the broad political consensus on the women’s quota but warned that delimitation could amount to "political demonetisation" and calling for wider deliberations.
"Every major party in this house recognises that the time for tokenism is over and the era of equal partnership must begin. And yet I'm finding myself deeply perturbed by the legislative exercise before us," Tharoor said.
"The Prime Minister says the government has brought 'Nari Shakti', a gift of justice, but he has wrapped it in barbed wire, tethering the implementation of women's reservation to the expansion of Parliament, to numbers from the 2011 census, and an exercise of delimitation," he added.
The Congress MP said the Centre's move to link the two bills amounted to "holding the aspirations of Indian women hostage".
"Linking women's reservation to delimitation is to hold the aspirations of Indian women hostage to one of the most contentious administrative exercises in our nation's history," he said.
Women's reservation, Tharoor said, is ready for harvest and can and should be implemented immediately based on existing parliamentary strength.
"Delimitation is not a mere bureaucratic rearranging of maps, it is a profound shift in political power that is intended.... Any delimitation exercise is fraught with complications that could tear at the very fabric of our federalism," he said.
"You have proposed delimitation with such haste, the same haste that you showed on demonetisation. Unfortunately, we all know what damage that did to the country. Delimitation will turn out to be political demonetisation. Don't do it," he added.
Meanwhile, Tharoor also outlined key fault lines in the exercise, citing imbalances between larger and smaller states, and between southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala that have met population control goals and northern states that have not.
He said delimitation could reward states with higher population growth with greater political weight, raising questions over the message it sends.
The Congress MP also flagged concerns over disparities between economically stronger states and those more reliant on central funds.
Tharoor also pointed to the European Parliament's model of degressive proportionality which prevents the domination of smaller, less populous units by larger ones as a possible approach to strike a balance.
