CHENNAI: An analysis of the Delimitation Bill and the Constitutional amendments being moved in the Parliament on Thursday showed that Tamil Nadu will not only be one of the states that will see its representation shrinking in the Lok Sabha (LS), but also the worst affected state based on two key parameters — the effective loss in the number of seats and the percentage point drop in its share of LS seats.
The BJP-led union government is yet to offer full clarity on the manner in which the delimitation exercise will be done. However, a reading of the draft bills and amendments makes it fairly obvious that it will be solely based on the last completed census in 2011.
With 39 seats in LS, Tamil Nadu currently accounts for 7.4 % of the total 524 seats (excluding the 19 seats UTs have). Considering the proposed increase of LS seats to 815 for states (excluding 35 for UTs) and if the delimitation were to be carried out as per the 2011 census, the state’s seats will increase from 39 to 50.
However, its share among the total LS seats (815) will come down to 6.13%, a drop of 1.31 percentage points, which is the highest among all states.
The extent of the reduction is revealed better if seen in terms of the seats effective lost by Tamil Nadu. Assuming that the delimitation is done while maintaining the every state’s present share as per the 1971 census, Tamil Nadu would get 22 more seats to make its total tally to 61. Instead, it will now get only 11 more and therefore in effect losing the remaining 11.
Note: Seats of UTs have been excluded while calculating the share of seats since the use of population as a factor applies only to states and not UTs, which are treated as a separate pool, by Article 81 of the Constitution.