Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin on Wednesday called for statewide black flag protests against the Centre's proposed delimitation amendment Bill, describing it as a "massive historic injustice" against southern states and issuing what he termed a "final warning" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of a special session of Parliament convened for Thursday.
"Is punishment being meted out to Tamil Nadu and the southern states for the crime of striving for India's growth? The delimitation amendment bill that the Union BJP government plans to introduce in Parliament tomorrow is a massive historic injustice inflicted upon Tamil Nadu and the southern states," Stalin said in a post on X.
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The escalation comes as the BJP-led Centre prepares to table a constitutional amendment Bill during a special three-day Parliament session beginning Thursday. The Centre has proposed increasing Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850 to implement 33% reservation for women in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha.
Thde seat allocation will be linked to population, a formula that southern states say will penalise them for responsibly following the Centre's own family planning directives for decades.
"When the Union government urged us to control population growth, to have smaller families, and to follow family planning measures, we complied. Is this now the punishment for having done what was asked of us with discipline?" Stalin said.
Stalin accused the Centre of proceeding entirely without consultation. "We do not even know how this delimitation exercise is going to be carried out. No explanation has been provided so far regarding the proposed constitutional amendment," he said, adding that requests for MPs from various parties to meet the Prime Minister had been denied.
Threatening to personally lead an agitation, Stalin warned: "Tamil Nadu will rise. Tamil Nadu will register its protest with full force. Every family will take to the streets." He invoked the DMK's founding movements of the 1950s and 1960s as a reference point for the scale of resistance the Centre could expect.
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Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy also stepped up his attack, alleging that women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in southern states would face "injustice" if seats were increased on a purely pro-rata basis favouring northern states.
The row places the Centre in an uncomfortable position ahead of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu on April 23, with opposition parties across the south seeking to consolidate anti-BJP sentiment around what they have framed as an assault on federalism and states' rights.
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