130TH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL IS THE DEATH KNELL FOR THE CONSTITUTION, FEDERAL STRUCTURE AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY: DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA

130^TH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL IS THE DEATH KNELL FOR THE CONSTITUTION, FEDERAL STRUCTURE AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY: DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA

22-AUG-ENG 5

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

PATNA-------------------------CPI-ML General Secretary Ka. Dipankar Bhattacharya said in Patna today that the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill is the death knell for India's constitutional federal system and parliamentary democracy.

He said that according to this bill, if a minister is sentenced to 5 years on any charge and remains in jail for 30 days, he will have to step down from the post. Obviously, the Prime Minister or BJP ministers will not be sent to jail. This provision is a well-planned conspiracy to destabilize non-BJP governments and not let them function.

After the misuse of ED, CBI and NIA and converting Governor's offices into BJP offices, now if this law is enacted, the existence of non-BJP governments will become almost impossible. Therefore, every citizen who believes in democracy, constitution and rule of law should strongly oppose this daring bill.

Dipankar Bhattacharya welcomed the decision of India Alliance to elect Justice V. Sudarshan Reddy as the Vice President and said that this is a positive and timely decision. Justice Reddy's track record in protecting the Constitution and human rights has been remarkable. He had declared the Salwa Judum campaign promoting corporate loot in Chhattisgarh as unconstitutional. Such a person is needed for this post. This country does not want a person associated with RSS ideology.

India Alliance's Voter Rights Yatra is becoming a mass movement in the direction of protecting democracy and the Constitution. This is a 13-day long journey. The journey took place from Sasaram to Barbigha from 17 to 19 August. The public is getting widespread support. The message of the Voter Rights Yatra is that the right of every vote has to be protected and used correctly. The government that has become a burden for twenty years has to be thrown out of power. It has the message of both protection and change. Thank you to everyone from the bottom of my heart for your support.

We had also done a padyatra in the same area last October. At that time, the desire for change had emerged among the people. There is a lot of anger in Gaya and Nawada against the incidents of Dalit oppression. This time, along with the desire for change, anger has also been added to the SIR.

Now there is no confusion on SIR. The list of 65 lakh names has come out and it has become clear that this is a campaign to delete names. The talk is about Bangladeshi intruders but the names of migrant workers are being deleted. Any leader from Gujarat becomes a voter of Bihar, but the names of Biharis who go to Gujarat to earn money are being deleted. There is Form 6A for NRIs as well. But not for migrant labourers from Bihar.

Two types of scams are going on in this. Firstly, the home address of lakhs of people has been declared as zero. The Election Commission is calling them homeless voters. Then how was their verification done? How were they talked to? All this is under question.

The second scam is that on the objections being given by our party and BLA, the commission is saying that no objection has been registered. We ourselves took Mintu Paswan to the office of the Election Officer of Bihar. The Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar said that this objection will be registered in Bhojpur, but still it is coming as zero. Samajwadi Party has shown that 18000 affidavits were given, but the Election Commission is not ready to listen to those complaints. It is clear from this that the Election Commission's aim is to snatch away the right to vote. During its press conference in Delhi, the Election Commission did not answer a single question correctly. Instead, it kept making fun of it. This voter list is still a draft. It is not known what will happen in the final list, so everyone has to be alert.

Apart from the CPI(ML) General Secretary, State Secretary Kunal, MLC Shashi Yadav, who was part of the yatra, former MLA Manoj Manzil, Lokyuddha editor Santosh Sahar and legislative party leader Satyadev Ram also addressed the press conference.