Photo: Sidheeq / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi used a packed student gathering at Chennai’s Island Grounds on Saturday to accuse the Centre of using delimitation to cut Tamil Nadu’s voice in Parliament, even as the BJP stepped up its attack on him over his claim that President Droupadi Murmu had “accepted” the Opposition’s allegations of vote theft.
Delimitation and language at the centre
Speaking at ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ (Voice of Students), the sixth edition of his youth outreach programme, Mr. Gandhi alleged that the government was pushing the delimitation bill under the cover of women’s reservation and that the exercise was designed to punish the State.
It is an attack on Tamil Nadu, we are not going to let Modi attack Tamil language, history and culture.
Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition
He also raised the three-language formula under the National Education Policy, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu. Drawing on Periyar and Thiruvalluvar, he urged students to question everything rather than accept ideas because someone else said so.
Message to protesting students
Mr. Gandhi referred repeatedly to Saturday’s crackdown on the youth-led protest in Delhi against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying the capital had been shut down and its internet cut off. “My message to all the students: you have nothing to fear. We are with you,” he said, and likened the Prime Minister to the villain Mogambo from the 1987 film Mr. India.
Earlier in the day he had lunch with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay at his residence in Neelankarai, after which the two visited a café nearby. It was their first meeting since Mr. Vijay’s party, the TVK, joined the INDIA bloc, and it came soon after the party won by-elections in the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly seats. The Congress backed Mr. Vijay to form the government, breaking with its former ally, the DMK, whose position on delimitation has wavered.
Row over the President
Back in Delhi, the BJP targeted Mr. Gandhi over his claim a day earlier that the President had accepted the Opposition’s ‘vote chori’ charge. Officials at Rashtrapati Bhavan, who usually stay out of political disputes, said his remarks were incorrect and unfortunate.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal said Mr. Gandhi had shown “disregard for courtesies and ignorance of both law and common sense”. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said receiving a memorandum was routine procedure, and pointed out that while Mr. Gandhi claimed the President had accepted his arguments, he also said she had asked for evidence.
What happens next
Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said MPs, leaders and workers of the INDIA bloc would hold a large protest march against the Election Commission leadership, and that a delegation of senior leaders would submit a memorandum to the Chief Justice of India seeking his intervention. The Chennai visit came as Opposition parties keep up their campaign against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has also prompted protests in Chennai.
