Mann attends delimitation meet in Chennai, slams BJP

Chandigarh: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday attended the meeting on ‘fair delimitation' hosted by Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin in Chennai. He stated that the state would oppose the BJP-led Centre's "unfair, faulty and undemocratic" delimitation intended to "muzzle the voice" of the opposition parties. Assuring support to like-minded parties for opposing the delimitation, he also invited all the parties to hold the next conference in any city of Punjab. Mann alleged that the "arbitrary" move by the Centre aimed to "eliminate" the opposition parties by reducing the seats where BJP is unable to win.
"The BJP is trying its best to enhance the seats in the Hindi belt where it secures most of the seats. It is ironic that, in the name of population density, the seats are being reduced in South Indian regions. This shameful act of BJP to reduce the seats in the states where they can't win is undemocratic, and we won't allow the saffron party to succeed in its nefarious designs to weaken democracy. BJP wants to humiliate Punjab, which made enormous sacrifices in the national freedom struggle, through this delimitation. Currently, the state has 13 Lok Sabha seats, through which the share of Punjab in Parliament is 2.39%. However, the BJP intends to increase Lok Sabha seats in the state to 18, but it will reduce the percentage of the state's share to 2.11%," he claimed.
"The southern seats are being punished for zealously implementing population control programs. It will not be a surprise if the BJP enhances the tally of seats in Uttar Pradesh from 80 to more than 140 after the delimitation. The idea is to bifurcate or even trifurcate the seats which are the stronghold of the saffron party and to carve out more winning seats from it," he said.
Citing an example, Mann said that the Lok Sabha seat earlier represented by him was Sangrur, which comprised three districts: Sangrur, Barnala, and Malerkotla. He said that if this seat was a monopoly of BJP, then as per their current designs, they would have trifurcated this seat into three and carved out Sangrur, Barnala, and Malerkotla as separate Lok Sabha seats. "This is how the BJP intends to increase the Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850 or more to consolidate its position," he claimed. Mann alleged that the BJP wants to eliminate the belts where they are weak and enhance the seats where they are strong. "This is intolerable, unwarranted, and undesirable, adding that it will be opposed tooth and nail. Power-mad BJP is trying to weaken democracy in the country, but this will never be allowed at any cost," he said.