New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday weighed in on the controversy over the seating capacity of the new Parliament building during an interaction with the Indian expatriate in the US city of San Francisco.
At an event in Santa Clara, Gandhi was asked about the fact that the new parliament has a seating capacity of 888, and whether ratio-to-population – the proportion of MPs a state has to its population – would ensure representation. There was a proper way.
Gandhi said, “One has to be very careful while making changes in the country’s representative structure.” “I would be quite interested to understand how they have come up with the number of 800 and what criteria they are using. India is a conversation. It is a conversation between its languages, people, history and cultures,” he added. Said, “This conversation should be fair”.
Gandhi said, “All the states of India must realize that there is fairness in the negotiation process.”
The ratio-to-population formula is seen as controversial because it is seen to benefit states that have not managed to effectively control their population, at the expense of those including southern states.
“I think the Parliament building is a distraction. The real issues in India are unemployment, inflation, spread of anger and hatred, crumbling education system, healthcare prices.” The BJP cannot really discuss these issues. The whole scepter has to work. Laying down and doing all that”.
In conversation, Gandhi spoke about her experience with the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and answered questions on “language imposition”, the Women’s Reservation Bill, and the caste census, among other things. He once again emphasized that India is a union of states, and there is a need to “hear” what the Bharat Jodo Yatra taught them.
The talk was the first of Gandhi’s 6-day visit to the US, during which he would spend time meeting the Indian diaspora in Silicon Valley, Washington DC and New York.
He is scheduled to discuss democracy with researchers from Stanford University, meet with members of the US Congress and senators, and have a mega closing ceremony planned at the Javits Center in New York City.
In Santa Clara, Gandhi once againThe market of hatred is the shop of love” Stop.
“It wasn’t us who were walking [during the 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra], It was India that was walking with us,” he said. People coming in large numbers were creating an atmosphere of love and affection where no one was feeling tired.
Women Reservation, Caste Census
After about 14 minutes of the address, Rahul was asked questions by members of the audience.
Asked about her party’s stand on the Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks to reserve seats in the legislature for women, she said the Congress is committed to the law.
“In the previous government, we wanted to pass it but some of our colleagues were not happy with it and did not support us for that bill,” he said. “I am sure when we come to power, we will pass that bill.”
When asked by a member of the Tamil community about making India a “United States of India”, Gandhi said that the definition of India in the Constitution is a “Union of States”.
“The idea within our Constitution is that all our languages, the cultures of each of our states are to be protected under the Union. I know that Tamil language is more than a language for Tamil people. “It is their history, it is their culture. It is their way of life. And I will never allow Tamil language to be in danger. To me threatening the Tamil language is threatening the idea of India.
Asked what the Congress wanted to do to ensure social justice, Gandhi said the party would release the 2011 caste census data if voted to power.
“One of the suggestions that we are giving is that when we were in the government, we did a caste census and the idea behind the caste census was to take an X-ray of the Indian society,” he said. “To find out what are the exact demographics of our country. What are the different communities and castes. How many people in each community and caste. Because without understanding our demographics and understanding who is who, money and power can be effectively It is very difficult to distribute properly.
“We are pressurizing the BJP to release the caste census data. And we will do so when we come to power.”
San Francisco’s Bay Area Muslim community also asked Gandhi what hope he was offering to Indian Muslims.
“The best way for me to explain it is ‘The market of hatred is the shop of love. This [hatred] is felt most strongly by the Muslim community as this is being done directly to them,” he said. “But, in fact, it is being done for all minorities. I can guarantee you that the way you are being attacked, similarly our Sikh brothers, Christian brothers, Dalit community, tribal community are also feeling the same.
He said, “Whoever is poor in India today, when he sees the abundance of wealth held by a limited number of people, in some ways he feels the same way you feel.”
“This is an incident that is happening against everyone in India,” he said.
(Editing by Sunanda Ranjan)