Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s major Dravidian parties DMK and AIADMK will not participate in the all-party-MPs meeting convened by Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay on Saturday to discuss Union govt’s proposed delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies, sources in the two parties told TOI.DMK MPs staying away from the meeting indicates the party is moving closer to supporting Union govt on the delimitation bill after Congress parted ways with it after the assembly election debacle.In a statement on Friday, DMK general secretary Duraimurugan said DMK would participate in the meeting on delimitation only if the state govt convened a similar meeting on the Mekedatu dam issue first. DMK MPs said they have no instructions to be in Chennai on Saturday.AIADMK leaders, meanwhile, said Vijay should have called leaders of the parties before calling the MPs. “This is like a producer releasing a movie directly in theatres bypassing distributors,” said an AIADMK leader who confirmed the party’s four Rajya Sabha members would not take part in the Saturday meet.PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss, DMDK leader L K Sudhish and MNM leader Kamal Haasan are also likely to skip Saturday’s meeting which will be attended by MPs of Congress, VCK, CPI, CPM and IUML.A DMK leader confirmed that BJP had sought the party’s support for the delimitation bill. “DMK is not against delimitation; we want the exercise to be fair. Earlier our concerns were not addressed. They approached us again, and we gave our demands,” the leader said. DMK wants the existing share of LS seats of the southern states protected, and it wants the proposed increase of 50% of seats to be applicable to all states uniformly. It wants this arrangement to remain unchanged for 30 years irrespective of future Census figures, the leader said.Earlier in the day, leader of the opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin told the assembly that DMK president M K Stalin would take a call on the delimitation issue. The response came when public works department minister Aadhav Arjuna asked Udhayanidhi to clarify DMK’s stand on delimitation, against the backdrop of reports of DMK likely to support the bill or abstain during voting.“DMK was the first party to raise objections to the delimitation proposal and convene a meeting of chief ministers of the southern states,” Udhayanidhi said.In its statement, DMK asked Vijay to prioritise Mekedatu over delimitation. “TVK govt should not remain silent on the Mekedatu issue simply because of its new alliance with Congress and restrict discussions to delimitation alone. It must convene an all-party meeting on Mekedatu to reflect Tamil Nadu’s collective opposition to the dam project and safeguard the state’s water rights,” Duraimurugan said.DMK remains committed to a “fair delimitation” process that does not reduce Tamil Nadu’s parliamentary representation, he said.(With inputs from Shanmughasundaram J and Yazhiniyan)
