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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

What Modi got wrong. Indians don’t want hundreds of new MPs

If the government wants to spend taxpayers’ money to make India a better place, then spend it on building more courts, improving the collapsing bureaucracy. But, of course, politicians will only think of themselves.

Why did the government introduce the Delimitation Bill? Two reasons have been offered. The first is that it believed that by linking delimitation with the women’s reservation issue it would force the Opposition to support it. Plus, the BJP’s political management is so superb that it was confident of ‘persuading’ opposition members to vote for the Bill.

The second possible reason is that it believed it would win either way. The government knew how hard it would be to get the two–third majority required to pass the Bill. But it reckoned that even if the Bill failed, it would have ‘trapped’ the Opposition by forcing it to vote against women’s reservation.

And sure enough, after the defeat of the Bill, news channels sympathetic to the government have been playing down the controversial delimitation aspect of the Bill that led to its defeat. Instead, it’s being called the “Women’s Bill” and the usual angle is that the Opposition voted against women’s reservation.

If the second reason is what actually motivated the government, then it seems extraordinarily cynical. To add women’s reservation, on which the government has not moved for 12 years, to a contentious Bill only ‘to trap’ the Opposition makes a mockery of the BJP’s commitment to the reservation issue.

But even that explanation is not entirely adequate. Why try and ‘trap’ the Opposition now? Why not do it before the Assembly election campaigns got underway? It’s a bit late now to raise it before the Bengal election. Why........

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