New Delhi: Union minister for parliamentary affairs Kiren Rijiju on Monday (October 19) said in a letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge that consultations on building consensus on the delimitation bill had already been held with various parties. He mentioned the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Samajwadi Party, YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), Nationalist Congress Power (NCP), Shiv Sena (UBT), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD).Rijiju’s letter to Kharge comes amidst speculation that the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government may move to bring the Delimitation Bill in a special session of parliament as it faces protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.However, the DMK’s support for Kumar’s resignation while staying away from the opposition INDIA bloc, the YSCRP’s “regret” over supporting the 2023 Bill appointing the CEC and other Election Commissioners, and the BJD’s move to join the Opposition march to Election Commission earlier this month has put a cloud on how the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will cobble up the numbers to reach the required two-thirds majority to pass the constitutional amendment.While the government has not yet issued a public statement on whether a special session will be called, that the Monsoon Session has not yet been prorogued has only added to the speculation. Rijiju on Monday responded to Kharge’s letter demanding an all-party meeting and said that there is “no constitutional requirement prescribing a specific period within which a House must be prorogued following its adjournment sine die”.Rijiju said that the government had sought the Opposition’s support and cooperation for the Delimitation Bill and had reached out to the Congress on “several occasions”, including three letters sent in March and April and meeting Kharge and the leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi. Rijiju alleged that the Congress had not given dates for discussion following which the government’s outreach moved to other parties.“However, after repeated requests, the Congress party didn’t give dates for discussion after which the government’s outreach had extended to other political parties. Consultations were held with representatives of parties including the DMK, Samajwadi Party. YSRCP, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), AIMIM and BJD with a view to facilitating dialogue and building broader consensus in support of the proposed legislation,” said Rijiju.In April, for the first time in 12 years, the Modi government failed to pass a constitution amendment bill after a united Opposition defeated its delimitation linked Lok Sabha expansion plan that sought to increase the strength of the lower house to 850 seats to “operationalise” women’s reservation. Since then the BJP has moved to increase its numbers through a series of defections in the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shiv Sena (UBT) that has realigned parliamentary arithmetic. However, the ongoing protests against the Election Commission may once again hinder the BJP’s plans.While the YSRCP, which has 15 MPs, including 4 in the Lok Sabha, has not openly voiced its support for the INDIA bloc, party chief and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy has on Sunday said that supporting the 2023 bill for the appointment of the CEC was a “mistake”.“Both the State Election Commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioners should not be nominated by the ruling parties. In the past we have supported the Union government’s mechanism to make appointments by the ruling party. But we regret it today. We regret committing that mistake. Because an examiner cannot be appointed by a student,” he was quoted as saying. The bill was passed in 2023 in the absence of opposition MPs who had been suspended. During the debate in the Lok Sabha that lasted less than two hours, only 12 MPs spoke, mostly from the BJP and other parties friendly to it, including the YSRCP, Shiv Sena, BJD and TDP. The bill was passed in both houses as an unprecedented 146 MPs remained suspended.The 2023 law has once again become a flashpoint with the opposition INDIA bloc rallying against it as it provides that election commissioners should be appointed by the president based on advice from a committee comprising the prime minister, the leader of opposition (LOP) in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India (CJI), which gives the government a majority in the panel. Further the law also provides life-long immunity from prosecution to the CEC.Not just the YSRCP, the BJD which too while staying formally out of the NDA, had earlier supported the BJP in parliament has moved away from the BJP since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when it was trounced by the saffron party in Odisha after over two decades in power.On October 6, when the INDIA bloc sought to march to the Election Commission, three members of the BJD including two MPs – Sulata Deo and Manas Mangaraj – along with former MP Muzibullah Khan also joined the protest. While the BJD does not have any MPs in the Lok Sabha, it has five members in the Rajya Sabha.However, the most concerning move for the BJP in recent days has come from the DMK which on Saturday while criticising the Congress, called for the CEC’s resignation and a return to pre-SIR rolls.The decision came at a meeting chaired by party president and former chief minister M.K. Stalin, when four resolutions were adopted including opposition to the SIR, support for protests against it including by student bodies and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), criticism of the Congress and the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), and a demand for electoral reforms.The DMK has 30 MPs in parliament including 22 in Lok Sabha and 8 in the Rajya Sabha. While the party was part of the INDIA bloc when the delimitation bill was defeated in April, it has since walked out after the Congress ended its alliance with the party and joined hands with the TVK to form the government in Tamil Nadu after the assembly elections in the state. The party has however, said that it “will not align with the BJP just because we walked out of the INDIA bloc”.