New Delhi: Amid a push for a population management coverage by some Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday (July 17) alleged the BJP’s motive of raising the issue is political and aimed toward focusing on a “particular community”.
The former Union minister stated the population debate is “utterly misplaced” and half a century out-of-date as a big majority of Indian states have achieved alternative ranges of fertility.
In an interview with PTI, Tharoor stated the larger problem for India within the subsequent 20 years can be to put together for an ageing population, not a rising population.
He alleged the ruling occasion is raising this issue out of “thinly-concealed motivation” to target a “particular community”.
“It is no accident that the three states where the government is talking about reducing population are UP (Uttar Pradesh), Assam and Lakshadweep, where everyone knows who their intended audience is,” the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram stated.
“The Hindutva elements in our polity have not really studied the demographic issues. Their motive is purely political and communal,” he stated when requested concerning the push for population management in UP and Assam.
Tharoor’s remarks come days after Uttar Pradesh’s draft population management invoice was made public and the Assam authorities proposed formulation of a coverage on this regard. Both states are dominated by the BJP.
The UP draft invoice has provisions to debar individuals who have greater than two youngsters from the advantages of presidency schemes and proposes perks to those that comply with the two-child coverage.
Also, some BJP MPs are set to introduce non-public members’ payments on population management and uniform civil code within the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament, in accordance to info from the secretariats of each Houses.
The Monsoon session begins on July 19 and would conclude on August 13.
Asked concerning the upcoming Parliament session and the important thing points the Congress and the Opposition would elevate, Tharoor stated the federal government has been “so colossally inept’ that there are multiple issues “we want to elevate within the public curiosity”.
“The ineptitude of the government in its disastrous mismanagement of COVID, especially the blunder-laden vaccine policy; the continued failure to resolve the farmers’ agitation; the cratering economy, with GDP growth at its lowest in three decades,” he stated itemizing the problems the Opposition wants to focus in Parliament.
He additionally referred to the “price rise caused by extortionate fuel taxes; the worst unemployment ever recorded”, the French investigation into corruption within the Rafale deal” the scenario on the Sino-Indian border and the disaster in Afghanistan.
“And who knows what else may arise by Monday morning, given the government’s many unsavoury sins of omission and commission,” Tharoor stated.
On disruptions reasonably than debate turning into the norm in Parliament, the 65-year-old Congress leader stated it was well-known that he has been opposed to disruptions in precept and prefers to debate the problems.
“But if you look at those disruptions in recent years that have been called by the Opposition, they have always been caused by the ruling party’s refusal to discuss a specific issue of burning national importance, which leaves the Opposition no choice but to draw attention to the issues the government wishes to avoid through disruption,” he stated.
If debates had been allowed, disruptions can be pointless, he asserted.
Tharoor urged the federal government to have the braveness to debate any issue the Opposition needs to elevate.
“That’s what Parliament is for. The government prefers to treat it as a notice-board where they can just announce their laws and policies,” he stated.
“If the ruling party treats Parliament with respect, which means agreeing to discuss the issues the Opposition raises and not just using their brute majority to push through the government’s agenda, I am sure the Opposition will reciprocate in kind,” he argued.
Asked whether or not the Afghanistan scenario would even be a key issue to be raised in Parliament, Tharoor stated, “Yes, that’s why I mentioned it along with China as the two external affairs issues that require discussion.”
This authorities has most well-liked to ship a minister to Parliament to learn out a press release and never entertain any questions, he alleged.
“That’s not how a democracy should function. We need to have detailed discussions in which the government takes the nation into confidence about what it has done so far and its strategy going forward,” he stated.
