NCP (SP) has not taken a stand on delimitation bill, media reports based on speculation: Sule

Mumbai, Jul 15 (PTI) NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule on Wednesday said that her party has not taken any official position on the proposed delimitation bill, saying media reports suggesting that it would support the legislation were based on unnamed sources and had led to confusion. Addressing a press conference here, Sule said the party has not issued any official statement on the issue. Sule said she was clarifying the matter after consulting NCP (SP) top leadership, including party president Sharad Pawar and senior leader Jayant Patil, to avoid any misunderstanding among workers of the party and the opposition bloc Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The NCP (SP) leader said she had also spoken to Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal, Congress leader Satej Patil and Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on the issue. Sule said the party had not received any written proposal from the Centre regarding the delimitation exercise and, therefore, could not take a formal stand at this stage. However, she said the party would announce its position within 24 hours if such a proposal were received. The Baramati MP said that media reports suggesting that NCP (SP) would support the legislation were based on unnamed sources and had led to confusion. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram recently claimed that the BJP was wooing the NCP (SP) and the DMK to get their support for the 131st Constitution Amendment Bill, proposing to raise Lok Sabha seats to 850 and initiate delimitation in the Monsoon session of Parliament starting July 20. Recalling earlier discussions on the issue, Sule said that after Parliament passed the Women’s Reservation Bill unanimously, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju had invited her, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant and AIMIM Lok Sabha member Asaduddin Owaisi for consultations on delimitation. Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also present at the meeting, she said. Sule said southern states had expressed concerns that delimitation based purely on population would be unfair to them and had opposed such a move. During the discussions, she said, opposition leaders suggested exploring an alternative formula. According to Sule, Rijiju had then proposed increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats by 50 per cent across all states, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. She said Maharashtra’s Lok Sabha strength would increase from 48 to 72 seats under such a formula. She added that the reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the 33 per cent reservation for women would then be applied to the expanded strength. Sule said if the proposed legislation were based on a uniform 50 per cent increase in seats across all states, there would be little reason to oppose it. She, however, stressed that any decision on supporting such a proposal would be taken only after discussions within the INDIA bloc. She said the Opposition had written to the Centre under the leadership of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge seeking a collective discussion on the proposal instead of holding separate consultations with individual parties. Sule alleged that when the government later moved ahead with the proposed legislation, there was no mention of the 50 per cent increase in the draft. She claimed Amit Shah had suggested briefly suspending House proceedings to incorporate such a provision, but the proposal never materialised, and the bill was not brought forward in that form. PTI MR NR