New Delhi: Opposition chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday claimed that the federal government’s push for the Structure (131st Modification) Invoice is a “panic response” and linked this to the unexplained “quantity 16”, saying the invoice holds the reply to the timing and urgency behind the transfer.
Mr. Gandhi, in a speech in Parliament the place his remarks drew repeated objections from speaker Om Birla and the Finance Ministry viewers, mentioned that whereas watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Thursday, Mr. Modi was “out of vitality” and unable to have interaction, which he attributed to the strain of forcing a vote on a invoice that “everybody knew was mistaken.”
“All of the solutions to the riddles are within the quantity 16. You’ll quickly discover out,” Gandhi mentioned, including that he knew “rather more” than he was letting on. The Congress steered on its social media accounts that Mr. Gandhi’s statements could also be associated to the Epstein file.
Mr. Gandhi took half within the debate on the invoice and mentioned the prime minister “must ship the message once more that he’s pro-women.” “I will depart it to your creativeness as to why he would try this, however these in energy know precisely why he would try this,” the congressman mentioned.
In his speech, Mr. Gandhi additionally claimed that the proposed laws was not aimed toward empowering girls, however reasonably at redrawing India’s electoral map. He doubled down on social justice and criticized the federal government’s makes an attempt to demarcate and roll out girls’s reservations earlier than the continued nationwide census, which might additionally embody caste, is accomplished.
“Amit Shahji has repeatedly claimed that the caste census has been began and that households haven’t any caste. The true query is whether or not the caste census might be used to make sure illustration in parliament…That is an try to keep away from giving energy and illustration to our OBC brothers and sisters and as a substitute take energy away from them,” he mentioned.
Rahul echoed opposition events’ considerations that the invoice might tilt parliamentary illustration in direction of extra populous northern states, to the drawback of southern states.
“In impact, the federal government is telling the southern states, the northeastern states and the small and medium-sized states that if the Bharatiya Janata Occasion is to stay in energy, it’s going to scale back its illustration. That is nothing however an anti-national act. The present invoice is an try to use India’s girls and conceal behind them to alter the electoral map of India,” he mentioned.
He additionally claimed that there was “basic confusion” within the minds of the Bharatiya Janata Occasion and its management and accused them of complicated themselves with the Indian folks and the navy. “They consider they’re Indian residents, however in addition they consider they’re a military. You aren’t Indian residents, you aren’t a military,” he mentioned.
He insisted that the opposition’s criticism was directed on the authorities and never on the state or its establishments. “We aren’t attacking the Indian folks or the military, we’re attacking you. Don’t cover behind the Indian folks or the military,” he mentioned.
(Edited by Vidhi Butra)
