CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, in his speech at the Joint Action Committee for Fair Delimitation meeting in Chennai on Saturday, said the state's voice for justice was ignored because it did not have enough political strength to attract the nation's attention. "Decreasing our representations in the parliament will reduce our political strength," he said.
The CM cited the Centre's silence on over two years of violence in Manipur as an example of government inaction in states without adequate political strength.
The JAC meeting was attended by political leaders from states likely to be affected by delimitation. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Karnataka Deputy CM D K Shivakumar were among the attendees.
The CM, while addressing the JAC, stressed that "This struggle is not against the delimitation but for demanding a fair delimitation."
He added, "This is not about number of seats. Rather, this is about our authority, our rights and our future."
He noted that only if the autonomy of the states is ensured, federalism will prevail in India.
"Whenever there were threats to this in the past, various democratic forces had been preventing them. Now, we face similar challenges and threats," he stated.
Listing out the harms that the population-based delimitation will bring in, he said, "Decreasing representations will result in states struggle to get its due funds from the centre, it will bring in unwanted laws getting passed, decisions which will affect our people will be taken by those who don't understand us, women empowerment will face a setback, students will lose their opportunities, farmers will lose their support, our culture, identity, progress will be hit, social justice will be crippled, SC/ST communities will get affected."
He added, "We will be weakened politically in our own country."
The CM reiterated that this would go into history as an important day towards protecting India's federalism.
When Congress demanded for caste-based census and representation for communities on that basis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that if delimitation happened based on population, southern states would lose about 100 seats and asked "Whether the southern states will accept it,' while speaking in Telangana in 2023.
Recalling this, Stalin noted that Modi had accepted that the number of seats in southern states would go down and continued to push for delimitation.
"BJP always snatches away the states' rights and they bring in delimitation to fulfil their intentions," he alleged.
He further said "Understanding this threat, TN stands against it with an unprecedented unity and I appeal to leaders in the (JAC) meeting for similar unity in protecting the country's democracy and federalism."
The CM asked for the leaders' suggestions to extend the polity oppositions to the delimitation to legal platform and proposed an 'expert committee' to take up the political as well as the legal actions.
Stalin emphasised continuing the fight until fair delimitation is accomplished.
"At any cost, the states present in this meeting should not let our parliamentary representations decrease," he urged.
"We all should resolve that the population based delimitation should not be allowed. We should not let the states that had population in check be punished," he said.
Telangana CM Revanth Reddy wanted the number of MP seats in southern states to be hiked from 24% to 33%.
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said, “Reports indicate that the BJP-led union government is going ahead with the delimitation process without any consultation. The move is not driven by any constitutional principle or any democratic imperative but by narrow political interest.”
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, who spoke in the meeting, said, “Out of 543 seats, Punjab has 13 seats, which amounts to 2.39%. If number of seats is increased to 850, Punjab may get additional 5 seats. But 18 seats would mean only 2.11% (LS seats in Parliament) .”
D K Shivakumar, Karnataka deputy CM, said that it was not the battle of north and south. “It is a fight to reclaim India as a union of equal states,” he said.
“If India truly has to become a superpower by 2047, there should be cooperative federalism not coercive federalism,” BRS leader K T Ramo Rao said. “If south India contributes 36% to India’s GDP, can the south have 36% representation in Parliament? Why can’t fiscal contribution, development, progress be the criteria. Why only population,” he asked.
