The delimitation debate rages on...

An all-party meeting in Chennai on 5 March had asked the Centre to extend delimitation for 30 more years beyond 2026. Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin enlarged the battlelines by convening a meeting of Opposition-ruled states on 22 March to discuss delimitation and attacks on federalism by the BJP-led government at the Centre.

Even as the debate simmers, the Union government has said nothing to clear the air or end the suspense. While political observers expect no dramatic outcome from the Chennai meet, it was an opportunity to present a unified front by non-BJP states, also cementing Stalin’s growing stature as one of the leading figures in the Opposition. He has been leading the fightback against the BJP government’s all-encompassing drive to impose its vision on the country. He has taken on governor R.N. Ravi, who is seen as functioning more like a BJP worker than a Constitutional functionary.

Stalin has also articulated the southern states’ grievances over the distribution of the Centre’s tax revenues; and he has resisted New Delhi’s perceived attempts to spread Hindi through the three-language formula. He has also emerged as the rallying point on the critical issue of delimitation of constituencies.

Congress whip and Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore was quoted as saying, “The problem with this (Central) government is its penchant for secrecy. They do not have dialogue with Opposition parties and chief ministers. Take, for instance, the delimitation in Jammu and Kashmir and Assam earlier. They redrew boundaries to reduce the number of minority (-dominated) seats.”

States like Bihar and others in the north are trying to control population growth, he conceded, but pointed to people like RSS chief (Mohan Bhagwat) and (Uttar Pradesh CM) Yogi Adityanath urging people to have more babies.

The delimitation formula mandated by the Constitution says after every Census, states with higher populations would receive a higher number of seats in Parliament and state assemblies corresponding to their population. While the principle is to ensure that across the country, political representatives are elected by more or less similar number of constituents, this has never been achieved in practice.

The Outer Delhi and Thane Lok Sabha constituencies had nearly 30 lakh voters even in 2001, while most other constituencies had 10–12 lakh. The then Union law minister Arun Jaitley suggested in Parliament in August 2001 while moving the Constitution Amendment Bill that delimitation be frozen for 25 years as there are “some states which have implemented the family planning programme very effectively and there are some states where it has not been effectively implemented”. Delimitation was frozen for 25 years in 1976 on similar grounds, he pointed out.

In the debate in Parliament that followed in 2001, Shivraj Patil and Somnath Chatterjee contested Jaitley’s contention that a freeze on delimitation would incentivise states to control population. “What was the population in 1975? It was nearly 70 crore. In 2001, we are nearly 100 crore, and in 2026, we would be nearly 140 crore…,” Patil said.

Chatterjee also felt that a freeze would not lead to reduced populations in northern states. “Nobody produces children on the basis of who will be representing his son in Parliament,” he quipped. Patil had then said while an MP was on an average representing 10 lakh people in 2001, it would rise to 15 lakh because of the freeze by 2026.

There were MPs like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Patil in 2001, who argued that a country with a growing population needed bigger representative bodies.

“What is the number of members sitting in the People’s National Congress of China? It is 3,000,” Patil had said. Commentators point out that the House of Commons in the UK has 650 members to represent a population of under 70 million (7 crore) people. This is countered by the argument that in India, the state assemblies need to have seats in proportion to their population, not the Parliament.

One more MP in the Lok Sabha is unlikely to make any difference to a state like Uttar Pradesh, but a higher number of elected seats in the assembly reflecting the higher population may well be desirable. But then the irony is that the BJP government, which cites expenses in holding elections as justification for ‘one nation one election’, does not seem deterred by expenses that will be required to support a higher number of MPs and MLAs, and provide them with the infrastructure needed.

The Chennai meeting may also discuss ways to ensure that no state loses seats and yet the states with higher population gain more seats. A second idea is to let population determine Lok Sabha allocation, but change the distribution in the Rajya Sabha to balance the asymmetry. This could be done either through extra weightage for the disadvantaged states, or allot equal seats to all states in the Rajya Sabha as in the United States, where the Senate has two members each from all 50 states.

A radical proposal by R. Rangarajan, a former IAS officer and author of Polity Simplified, is to increase seats in assemblies while freezing Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats. Rangarajan calls for strengthening local body governance, arguing that it is the MLAs and municipal councillors who are more likely to represent their constituency interests, unlike MPs.

All or any of these proposals will require amending the Constitution in significant ways, and will therefore require the approval of the states and the Centre, but they are not insurmountable and offer a pathway to the future.

The angst of the southern states can be understood by the predicament of Tamil Nadu. With 39 MPs in the Lok Sabha, Tamil Nadu has a share of 7 per cent in the 543-member House. If the number of seats in the Lok Sabha is increased to 848 — the new Parliament building has 888 seats in the Lower House — it would be on the basis of the delimitation commission fixing an average population of around 16.66 lakh per constituency.

Based on this formula, Tamil Nadu, at a projected population of 7.73 crore for 2025, would get 45 seats, effectively reducing its share in Parliament to 5 per cent. A 1971 proportional ratio, however, ought to give Tamil Nadu 59 seats in Parliament to retain its 7 per cent share. However, if the Lok Sabha strength is kept at 543 and delimitation is based on a fresh Census, the Delimitation Commission will have to take the average base population per constituency at about 26 lakh.

In such a scenario, Tamil Nadu would get only 30 seats in the Lok Sabha, again reducing its proportional share to 5.5 per cent. If the 1977 population-to-MP ratio of 10.11 lakh is retained today, the strength of the Lok Sabha would have to be expanded to nearly 1,400 owing to the increase in population since then.

For Uttar Pradesh (including Uttarakhand), the number will then go up to 250 seats compared to its present 85 in the Lok Sabha. Bihar and Jharkhand’s combined seats would increase from 54 to 169.

Similarly, Rajasthan’s would increase from 25 to 82. But Tamil Nadu’s share would increase from 39 to only 76, less than double. Kerala’s would rise from 20 to 36. If the average population per constituency is doubled at 20 lakh for the purpose of delimitation, giving the Lok Sabha 707 seats as compared to 543 now, southern states would still be at a disadvantage.

Under this formula, Tamil Nadu’s seats would remain the same at 39. But Kerala would lose two seats and end up with 18. Conversely, UP (including Uttarakhand) would still register an increase to 126 seats, and Bihar and Jharkhand together to 85 seats.

Even at an average population of 15 lakh per constituency, which would take the total Lok Sabha seats to 942, southern states would be at a disadvantage. This formula will give Tamil Nadu 52 seats and Kerala 24. But UP (plus Uttarakhand) will get 168 seats, and Bihar and Jharkhand 114 seats.