Tamil NaduBJP president K Annamalai on Saturday said his party would not take part in the March 5 all-party meeting on the delimitation exercise and blamed Chief Minister M K Stalin for attempting to spread “imaginary fears” over the matter.
Writing to Stalin, Annamalai said his party firmly believed that he had misconstrued the delimitation exercise and had convened the all-party meeting to “spread your imaginary fears and deliberately lie about it,” even before any official statement was made.
Pointing to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that no state would be “undermined,” and that the exercise shall be on a pro-rata basis, the Tamil Nadu BJP chief told Stalin: “You must understand that the announcement for the delimitation exercise will be made at an appropriate time by the delimitation commission and it is disheartening to notice that you have still not learnt lessons from the lies you spread when one nation one election was announced and later when those got debunked.” Annamalai said that the INDIA bloc’s campaign line had been “Jitne Abadhi Utni Haq,” and (Rights proportional to the population) in 2023, and PM Narendra Modi had hit back, saying it would hurt the southern states which effectively implemented population control measures.
- Read: Shah slams Stalin on central funds, delimitation; says TN received over ₹5 lakh crore in 10 years
Wondering why the DMK did not take the “imaginary fear” to the Lok Sabha during the recent budget session, Annamalai, referring to Stalin’s claim that the number of seats in the Lok Sabha was set to go up to 848, asked the basis for that claim.
“We are not sure if you are privy to a confidential document indicating this actual number of 848 seats and we kindly request that you make the document public for the benefit of the people of Tamil Nadu.” A magazine has opined that the seats could be increased to 753, and tomorrow, some other media outlets may claim that the seats could be increased to 900; Annamalai said: “These are speculations, not official announcements. Based on these speculations, would you start contemplating how many seats Tamil Nadu would gain or lose?” Annamalai slammed Stalin by asking him if it was not his duty to validate and verify before making a statement.
“On behalf of BJP Tamil Nadu, I wish to inform you that you have failed to inform people on the source of your information that the delimitation exercise would be carried out based on population. Since this is an imaginary and baseless fear you are spreading, we have decided not to participate in the all-party meeting convened on March 5, 2025.”
Also, the BJP leader informed Stalin that his party would launch its signature campaign in support of the 3-language policy on March 5.
