CHENNAI: The AIADMK on Thursday supported the resolutions moved by Chief Minister MK Stalin at the all-party meeting but later criticised the DMK government for convening the meeting in a hurry.
Significantly, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss totally differed from their ally BJP, whose state chief K Annamalai has been saying this all-party meeting was unnecessary.
In the meeting, AIADMK organising secretary D Jayakumar said even after delimitation, the total number of Lok Sabha seats should remain 39 in Tamil Nadu. Or if the delimitation is done based on the population of each Lok Sabha constituency without changing the overall strength of 545 in Parliament, no state will be affected.
Jayakumar also suggested a modification to a resolution to the effect that Tamil Nadu’s existing percentage of seats, 7.18 per cent of the total, must not be reduced under any circumstances. It was accepted by the CM.
However, after the meeting, Jayakumar said that the DMK hurriedly convened the meeting to project itself as the state’s only saviour.
“Since it takes three years to complete the delimitation exercise, why this hurry in convening the all-party meeting? A drama has been enacted today to create an impression that the DMK is the only saviour for protecting the rights of Tamil Nadu. The DMK and the CM have no locus standi to speak about the rights of Tamil Nadu as the party had sacrificed the rights of the state on many issues in the past,” he said.
Anbumani said this all-party meeting was indeed necessary in the aftermath of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s remarks during his visit to Coimbatore where he said Tamil Nadu wouldn’t lose a single seat.
The Union minister, while assuring that the number of seats for Tamil Nadu will not be reduced, did not say how many seats would be increased for northern states like UP and Bihar.
“What we can infer from this statement is that the Union government is discussing delimitation internally. The CM should meet all his counterparts in the southern states on this issue and exert political and legal pressure for this issue consistently,” Anbumani added.
VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan said if the Union government is firm on delimitation, then a uniform increase of about 20% to 30% in the number of LS seats should be made across the country. The delimitation of boundaries of LS seats is as important as the delimitation of the number of LS constituencies. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, the earlier delimitations had split the votes of minority communities like Muslims, Christians and SC/STs.