Delimitation: South India calls Amit Shah’s ‘pro rata’ bluff

Was union home minister Amit Shah trying to be too clever by half?

While addressing BJP workers in Coimbatore on Wednesday, 26 February, Shah asserted that the southern states had nothing to fear from delimitation of constituencies. He confidently said that the southern states would not lose a single seat in Parliament, going on a ‘pro rata basis’. The exercise, he said, would be fair to the southern states.

The statement grabbed headlines, partly in view of Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin having called an all-party meeting on 5 March on the issue, with protests brewing across the South.

Shah thinks he was being clever while telling the truth. ‘Pro rata’ is simply Latin for ‘proportional’. By using the Latin term, the home minister appears to have tried to confuse the people while giving BJP workers across southern states a face-saving line to defend the decision.

The delimitation of constituencies — which is meant to ensure similar constituency size by population across the country — is by definition weighted in favour of the more populous northern states. On a ‘pro rata basis’, states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan are, therefore, likely to see the number of parliamentary constituencies go up. While they may also go up marginally in the southern states, on a pro rata basis, they would be the losers.

Amit Shah, however, muddied the waters by assuring the southern states that their interests were protected. The home minister invoked prime minister Narendra Modi — a sort of ‘Modi-ji ka guarantee’ — to promise that on a ‘pro rata basis’, not a single seat would be reduced and that whatever increase there is [in seats], southern states will get a fair share.

But what's fair, here?

The five southern states — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala — together have 129 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha now.

Ever since the census of 1971, on which the present allocation of seats is based, the southern states have reduced population growth considerably. A new census will show considerable increases in the population of the northern states since 1971, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — which would mean their share of Lok Sabha constituencies would go up substantially.

Former union minister A. Raja from the DMK was first off the block, asking what Shah had in mind — pro rata in terms of number of constituencies or population. He made the obvious point that it would be an injustice even if the existing seats for the South were retained, but seats for the North were hiked based on population.

Kerala CPI leader M.A. Baby simply asked, “If Amit Shah has nothing to hide, why doesn’t the Centre call an all-party meet and say what they propose to do? How do they intend to address the concerns?”

But the real broadside came from Siddharamiah, the Karnataka chief minister. The veteran Congress leader said Shah’s statement was simply ‘not credible’ and accused him of trying to sow confusion among southern voters.

Siddharamaiah cited studies that suggest the five states would lose 26 seats. He attacked Modi’s enthusiasm for delimitation as indicative of ‘malicious intent’ in punishing the South for resisting the saffron surge. He called for a united front in the South to resist the injustice in store for them.

Mahesh Kumar Goud, the Telangana Congress chief, said the state would not accept the loss of even a single seat, and added that the Centre had to clarify matters.

Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy is on record saying that any attempt to redraw the political map is mala fide, a move to sideline the southern states. “Why should we be penalised for successful family planning?” has been his refrain.

The opposition BRS too joined in — its working president K.T. Rama Rao backed Stalin and Revanth Reddy, saying it was ridiculous to penalise the South for successful population control.

He had an interesting suggestion: ‘If the Centre is keen on implementing delimitation, I propose a delimitation exercise based on financial contributions to the nation.’

The South with just 19 per cent of the country’s population contributes 36 per cent of the GDP. Specifically, Telangana — with just 2.8 per cent of the nation’s population, accounts for 5.2 per cent of the GDP, he noted.

In short, the better-governed and financially better off states should have a greater political representation in Parliament than the laggards.