NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday passed a special resolution in the urging the Centre to permanently retain the Lok Sabha’s strength at 543 seats.Days after convening a meeting of parties supporting his government, including the Congress and the Left parties that extend support from outside, CM Vijay moved the resolution in the assembly urging the Centre to maintain the Lok Sabha-Rajya Sabha seat ratio at 2.2:1.The government-sponsored resolution urged the Centre to implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections without delay, based on the existing strength of 543 seats.“The 33% reservation for women should be implemented in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections itself, based on the existing 543 constituencies. The 33% reservation for women should not be delayed any further. In Tamil Nadu, more women have voted than men. Providing reservation for women is not a concession; it is a matter of social justice. The 33% reservation for women must be implemented without any further delay,” Vijay said in the assembly.The resolution noted that the population of states, including Tamil Nadu, and the Union Territories has not been counted for more than five decades, with the next census scheduled for 2026.“All the states including Tamil Nadu and the people / elected representatives of the union territories have not had their population counted for more than 50 years. The next census to count the population was supposed to be held in 2026. Therefore, since the delimitation of constituencies has not been carried out for the last 50 years, based on the 2011 population census, the constituencies should be delimited and the number of Lok Sabha and Assembly members should be increased from 550 to 850 by bringing in a constitutional amendment Bill,” the resolution stated.Last week, a meeting convened by Vijay with Tamil Nadu MPs from alliance and friendly parties decided to oppose the Union government’s proposed delimitation exercise in its entirety.The meeting was boycotted by the main opposition DMK and the AIADMK, with the former calling the deliberations a “farce” and the latter describing them as a “hurriedly staged drama”.The MPs had demanded that the ratio of seats between the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha be maintained at 2.2:1. They also unanimously agreed to adopt a resolution in the state Assembly to permanently safeguard the interests of Tamil Nadu and other southern states in the delimitation process.Meanwhile, the AIADMK called the meeting a “hurriedly staged drama”, pointing out that no fresh delimitation Bill had been introduced in Parliament and that there had been no official announcement on the exercise.While the Congress and other opposition parties have supported the Women’s Reservation Bill, they have opposed linking its implementation to the delimitation exercise and have demanded that the two be delinked.
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The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, was passed by both Houses of Parliament. However, its implementation has not moved forward after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill fell in the Lok Sabha on April 17, failing to secure the constitutionally required two-thirds majority of members present and voting.
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The Bill had linked the implementation of 33% reservation for women in legislatures to the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies.
