No pill can fully relieve the South’s delimitation pain
A constitutional process put off due to political expediency five decades ago is now causing anxiety, especially in South India. When the new delimitation commission begins its cartography to redraw parliamentary constituencies across the country three years from now, the North will get more seats—and by extension, a bigger say in the House of the People—whichever way the government goes about it. If it stays with the Constitution’s current cap on the number of constituencies, states in the South will have to shed seats.
But if the basket of constituencies itself is expanded to ensure that no state loses any seat so as to reward achievers for lowering their fertility rate, the North’s count would further swell. Suits the ruling BJP just fine. The government could be preparing for the second option as the new parliament was built to address accommodation issues and the new Lok Sabha has at least 300 more seats. Else, it could end up adding oil to fire, as the South is already upset over the finance commission reducing its tax share citing the population ratio as a yardstick.
Delimitation is under the lens as the landmark women’s reservation bill that earmarked a third of seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies for women, tied its rollout to a decadal Census and a subsequent redrawing of constituencies. A new delimitation commission tasked with addressing the proportional representation skew in the Lok Sabha will also determine the seats that are to be reserved for women. Union Home Minister Amit Shah committed himself to a tight timetable of starting the Census process—put off in 2021 due to Covid—immediately after the 2024 general elections, commencing the delimitation exercise in 2026, and making the women’s quota operational from the 2029 polls.
Mandated by the Constitution after every decadal Census, delimitation commissions were set up in 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002. But in 1976, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi froze it for 25 years through a constitutional amendment during Emergency at the behest of her son Sanjay, claiming she wanted to promote family planning. When the delimitation window opened in 2001, the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee followed in Indira’s footsteps to kick the can down the road for 25 more years, citing the same argument. Fifty years of inertia distorted the balance. Delimitation is a master checkup for proportional representation in democracy that ought not to be avoided.