A joint action committee (JAC) comprising the chief ministers of four states and political leaders from three others on Saturday urged the Centre to extend the freeze on the delimitation on parliamentary constituencies by another 25 years, upping the ante on a contentious exercise that can widen the chasm between India’s northern and southern regions.
The JAC meeting – attended by members of 11 parties but not by the Bharatiya Janata Party or prominent opposition parties such as the Trinamool Congress – also decided that MPs would submit a joint representation to press for demands to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the ongoing parliamentary session.
The two-hour meeting in Chennai – called by Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin – adopted a resolution saying that any delimitation to improve the “content and character” of democracy should be carried out transparently, enabling political parties of all the states, state governments and other stakeholders to deliberate, discuss and contribute.
“Given the fact that the legislative intent behind the 42nd, 84th and 87th constitutional amendments was to protect / incentivise states which have implemented population control measures effectively and the goal of national population stabilisation has not yet been achieved, the freeze on parliamentary constituencies based on 1971 census population, should be extended by another 25 years,” the resolution said.
The BJP hit out at the Opposition over the meeting, with its Tamil Nadu unit chief K Annamalai saying that Stalin was trying to divert attention from the DMK government’s shortcomings by not raising with his counterparts the issues affecting the state. “In the last four years after DMK came to power, Tamil Nadu’s interests have continuously been sacrificed for political gain,” he said.
The next meeting of the JAC will be held in Hyderabad. The meeting was dominated by leaders from south India, with only Mann and being from northern India.
In the meeting, leaders said the states that effectively implemented population control programmes, and whose population share dipped, should not be penalised and the Centre must enact necessary constitutional amendments for this purpose.
“The core committee consisting of Members of Parliament from the represented states will coordinate the parliamentary strategies to counter any attempts by the Union government to undertake any delimitation exercise contrary to the principles mentioned above. The core committee of MPs shall submit a joint representation on the above lines to the Prime Minister of India during the ongoing Parliamentary session,” the resolution said.
The political parties from different states represented in the meeting will initiate efforts to bring appropriate legislative assembly resolutions in their respective states on the issue and communicate it to the Union government.
At the heart of the spiralling controversy is the issue of delimitation – originally scheduled for 2026 – which redefines the number of representatives a state sends to the Lok Sabha on the basis of population. A 2019 analysis by Milan Vaishnaw and Jamie Hintson of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, projected that such an exercise could see the overall strength of the Lok Sabha rising to 848, with Uttar Pradesh alone seeing its tally increase from the current 80 to 143 by 2026. In contrast, Tamil Nadu, which currently sends 39 representatives, could see the number rise to just 49. Kerala, which sends 20, would see no change at all.
Over the past month, Union home minister Amit Shah has sought to allay fears in Tamil Nadu, saying southern states will get a fair share of seats in the delimitation exercise. “The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has made it clear in the Parliament that on a pro rata basis, redrawing of parliamentary constituencies based on population levels will not alter the proportion of Lok Sabha members of parliament from the southern states,” Shah had said earlier this month.
To be sure, calculations show that if the number of Lok Sabha seats are increased proportional to the population of states, the more populous but poorer northern states will see their relative representation in Parliament expand at the expense of the prosperous but less populous southern states that have done far better in population control over the last few decades.
The Union government has not announced the timeline for delimitation or of the census which has to act as the basis for the exercise. And Shah’s comments appeared to suggest that the government could either defer the delimitation (like others before it have), or simply choose to not pursue any equity in representation across states. While such equity will ensure that every vote across India has the same weightage in terms of representation in the Lok Sabha, reducing the proportional representation of states such as Tamil Nadu will be tantamount to penalising them for successfully controlling the population (the national preoccupation in the 1970s especially) and rewarding the northern states for not doing so.
The concerns are not new. The 42nd amendment to the Constitution in 1976 froze delimitation based on the 1971 census, to promote family planning and population control. Then, in 2001, the 84th Amendment to the Constitution extended the freeze until 2026. When the delimitation happened in 2008, the total number of seats remained the same but the constituency boundaries were redrawn.
The meeting had representation from seven states, including the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Punjab and Kerala, and the deputy chief minister of Karnataka. Bharat Rashtra Samithi working chief KT Rama Rao also attended the meeting while Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik joined virtually.
“This movement is not against delimitation. It demands a fair and just process — one that does not punish states that have contributed to our national progress through their effective population control. Any attempt to reduce our representation is an assault on our voice, our rights, and our future. We will not allow our current share in parliamentary representation to be reduced under any circumstance,” Stalin said on X.
Telangana CM Revanth Reddy proposed the second meeting to be held in Hyderabad. “In case of population-based delimitation, the north will make us secondary citizens. If the BJP does this, south India will lose its political voice. The south will not accept population-based delimitation,” he said.
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that federalism was not a gift but a right. “A cut in seats for the south and an increase for the north will suit the BJP as it holds greater influence in the north,” he said.
Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar called the proposed exerciser an assault on southern states. “Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and every progressive state in this room faces a stark choice: submit to domination or rise in resistance. We choose resistance,” he said.
Mann said the BJP planned to reduce seats in the regions it did not win polls and increase in its strongholds to have an electoral edge. “They (BJP) are reducing seats where they don’t win. Even if the number of total parliamentary seats in Punjab increases marginally, our (Punjab’s) representation in Parliament will decrease,” he said.
In a virtual address, BJD president Naveen Patnaik said population should not be the only criterion to determine the number of seats. “This [population control] has been our contribution towards a positive national agenda and building a strong India. Delimitation based only on population figures will be unfair to the states that have worked hard to reduce their population growth rates in line with national priorities,” he said.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha did not attend the meeting but Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren backed the resolution. “Limiting delimitation only on the basis of population cannot be fair and equitable,” Soren said on X.
The BJP held a black flag protest across Tamil Nadu. “We have so many issues with our neighbouring states and the DMK government has given a red carpet welcome to alliance partners who are continuously betraying Tamil Nadu farmers in the Cauvery and Mullaperiyar issue, exploiting the natural resources of our state and turning our border districts into a dumping ground for medical waste from Kerala,” said BJP Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai.
