5Reasons Delimitation is Unviable: Decentralisation Best Way

The proposed Delimitation is unviable plan is flawed and unviable and looked at any way, the angst of southern states and their politicians is understandable, says a leading Chennai-based data analyst.

“Southern states face the threat of losing political power and relevance with the impending tussle on delimitation, which may drastically reduce their representation in Parliament,” says Nilakantan RS.

If the Lok Sabha’s seats are reapportioned based on current population figures, which are based on the last census of 2011, the impact on seat allocation could be drastic. Given the comparatively faster rate of population growth in north India, seat allocations based on current population levels would cause states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala to lose Lok Sabha seats, while Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh could gain seats.

The eventual result would be an increase in the number of constituencies in the northern states, increasing their presence in Parliament disproportionately, to the severe disadvantage of southern states, who continue to outperform the North on most parameters including per capita income and contribution to the central exchequer, infrastructure, health, and education.

Bearing the burden of the latter’s population growth, Delimitation is unviable

The South is also more urbanised, has lower infant mortality rates, and higher life expectancy. The argument is that the South is subsidising the North, bearing the burden of the latter’s population growth, unemployment, poverty, poor infrastructure, and social backwardness.

“If I have one child and my neighbour has 10 children, shall I pay for my neighbour,” queries Nilakantan, who has authored a bestselling book, South vs North: India’s Great Divide’.

According to Nilakantan, India is increasingly headed towards extreme centralisation, which has caused the fall of empires in the past.

“We need to limit the powers of the Union government so dramatically that these resource allocation problems are solved at the level of states. The states would first meet their requirements and then pass on the necessary revenue to the Union government for its core functions like defence and external affairs. Or, at the least, have the Union stop spending on state subjects. A good starting point would be to abolish the central flagship programmes and send that money back to states,” he points out.

Adds Nilakantan: “In the 2025 Union Budget, the finance minister’s central flagship programmes constitute a majority of the budget. Why shouldn’t they be sent back to the states? Why should the centre tinker with the language policy of states, when it is a state subject?”

Any future delimitation, most likely post-2026, will have to contend with harmoniously balancing two key constitutional values – federalism on the one hand, and the ‘one person, one vote, one value’ principle on the other. Aren’t these values central to this re-arrangement of constituencies, which the Constitution proposes every 10 years, post every census.

Nilakantan is not entirely convinced. He believes decentralization rather than delimitation is the answer. “There are no easy choices here but what is certainly needed is a just representation of its own people’s will in the way in which it is governed. The delimitation exercise threatens that,’’ he points out.

Delimitation is Unviable, According to government surveys, the three richest states have a per capita income that is three times higher than that of the three poorest states. Over the past 25 years, the income gap between the wealthiest and poorest three of the 12 largest states have been widening, now surpassing a whopping 300% difference.

Delimitation is Unviable,  Union Home Minister Amit Shah recent assurance that southern states will not lose a single parliamentary seat due to delimitation has drawn sharp criticism from the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin has called a meeting of southern CMs on March 5 to discuss Delimitation is Unviable, among other subjects, representing the great divide over an issue that political parties have traditionally handled with kid gloves, until the arrival of the Modi government.

Delimitation is Unviable So, is judicial intervention a way out of this imbroglio? “Absolutely not. This is not a judicial but a political question. The judiciary’s job is to interpret the Constitution. This discussion is focussed on the Constitution itself,’’ Nilakantan asserts.