New Delhi:
Kalisetti Appala Naidu, a Lok Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, has defended his outrageous offer to women – Rs 50,000 for the birth of a third child, and a cow if that child is a boy – by pointing to a “very poor next generation” in the state and the “very important” need to increase population in India, which is already the world’s second-most populous nation with over 1.44 billion, or 144 crore, people.
The bizarre (and sexist, in giving greater ‘rewards’ for boys) offer – from a member of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party – has been hailed by TDP seniors as “revolutionary”.
The ‘offer’ comes amid a row brewing between the centre and the southern states, led by Tamil Nadu, over delimitation, i.e., the process of redrawing parliamentary constituency boundaries – based on current population data – before the 2029 general election.
The southern states have argued this means they will get fewer seats in the re-constituted Parliament because they, on average, have controlled population growth better than their northern counterparts, many of which are Hindi-speaking and seen as BJP bastions.
