Security stepped up across Belagavi as 10-day Karnataka Legislature session begins
Belagavi (KTK), (PTI): A security blanket has been thrown across the Belagavi city as the winter session of the Karnataka Legislature starts on Monday.
Amid fear over the border row with Maharashtra and disruption due to protests by various communities, the entire city resembles a cantonment of sorts.
Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, where the session is in progress appears like a barrack with policemen deployed all over the place.
According to police sources, nearly 5,000 policemen have been deployed for maintaining law and order in the city.
These policemen include six superintendents of police, 11 additional superintendents of police, 43 deputy SPs, 95 inspectors and 241 sub-inspectors, they added.
The sources also said there will be a sizeable number of policemen deployed at the Vaccine Depot ground where the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti is staging a demonstration demanding merger of Belagavi with Maharashtra.
Some leaders from Maharashtra had wished to participate in the event. A Maharashtra MP Dhairyasheel Mane had even requested the Belagavi district administration to make arrangements for his visit to the city.
However, the district authorities imposed a ban on his entry saying that his possible inflammatory speech may create law and order problems.
Apart from the MES, various groups including farmers, are also staging demonstrations in Belagavi to press for their demands.
This session, which would be the last one of the current Assembly, as the elections are barely four months away, may also see commotion inside the House with political parties trying to draw the attention of people with their protests, sources said.
There are many bills which is likely to be tabled and cleared in the current session.
A controversial anti-Halal bill may also be introduced in the session as a private bill by a BJP legislator, which may cause furore, the sources added.
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Stalin accuses Centre of trying to use women's quota as 'weapon,' slams EPS over delimitation
Chennai (PTI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has strongly criticised the Centre over the women's reservation and accused it of trying to use it as a "weapon" to tackle the opposition before taking up the delimitation exercise based on population.
"The Union government is not concerned about implementing reservations for women. If their concerns were genuine, they could have done it right away. Rather than doing that, the BJP-led Centre is thinking of using it as a weapon to tackle opposition and take up the delimitation exercise based on population," he told PTI in an interview.
"Hence, the women's reservation must be implemented immediately without showing delimitation as a reason," the DMK president added.
Expressing apprehensions on the proposed delimitation exercise, the CM said it was the DMK that raised the first voice asserting the rights of the state after realising that Tamil Nadu would be affected by the proposed exercise. He also attacked his rival and AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami over the delimitation issue.
Recalling efforts made by the DMK to raise the issue of population-based delimitation, he said an all-party meeting and a meeting of CMs under the auspices of the Joint Action Committee seeking fair delimitation were convened. It sought to freeze delimitation for 25 years and stick to it based on the 1971 Census population.
"We urged the union government that states which successfully implemented population control programmes must not be punished," he added.
The party came up with "Tamil Nadu poradum, Tamil Nadu vellum" (Tamil Nadu will struggle, Tamil Nadu will win) and this is DMK's stand, he said.
"However, Palaniswami, who is seeking votes for the entry of the BJP through the backdoor, has till date been mute over delimitation, and this is a betrayal of the people of Tamil Nadu."
