Delimitation policy need total revisit

 Polity of Delimitation of Constituencies

By:

(Dr VK Bahuguna)

(Former IFS officer and Chairman Centre for Resource Management and Environment)

The democratic nations are governed by the public representatives who are elected by the public through universal franchise and, India is one of the biggest democratic countries in the world with a population of 142 crore people. The Article 82 of the constitution lays down the procedure of delimitation of constituencies for determining the number of Lok Sabha (House of People) seats and similarly Article 170 lays down the provisions of determining the strength of state assemblies. This process empowers the Parliament to constitute a Delimitation Commission after passing the Delimitation Act after every census. The Delimitation Commission is headed by a Supreme Court Judge and its job is to redraw the boundaries and numbers of constituencies based on ‘one citizen, one voter with one value’ and works on the principle of equity while distributing the population. So far historically delimitation was conducted in 1951, 1961 and 1971 after the census and adjusted the number of seats and the boundaries of the constituencies. However, in order to promote population control the government of India led by Mrs Indira Gandhi through 42th Constitutional Amendment in 1976 froze the delimitation process till 2001. Through the yet another 84Th constitutional amendment the freeze was further extended from 2001 to 2026. 

Now the issue of delimitation has again gained momentum and the southern states who have done exceedingly well compared to north Indian states in controlling the population now are crying hoarse about population based delimitation along with some regional parties in some states like the Samanata party in Uttarakhand who are asking for adopting geographic area base approach considering the local factors and difficult hilly terrains. However, so far previously in the delimitation process, the Central government as stated above constituted the Delimitation Commission after population census by enacting the Delimitation Act, which then uses the latest population data to redraw boundaries and determine seat allocations within states, while also designating reserved seats for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) based on their population proportions as per Articles 330 and 332. The Commission consults associate members—sitting MPs and MLAs—but retains final decision-making authority. Once finalized, its orders are published in the Gazette of India and laid before Parliament and State Assemblies without scope for any kind of modification.

This time the Prime Minister has to really create a consensus on how to deal with conflicting interests while dealing with delimitation exercise. Most of the South Indian states have expressed fears that if delimitation occurs based on population criteria they will lose Lok Sabha seats as the fertility rate of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana is 1.5, Kerala and Karnataka in 1.6 and Tamil Nadu the lowest at 1.4 well below the replacement rate on 2.1. On the other hand the fertility rates of most of the Northern states are higher than the replacement rate of 2.1. The Bihar has the highest fertility rate of 3.1 in country, followed by Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh at 2.9 and Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan with 2.4, Haryana with 2. Among northern/western states only Maharashtra with 1.4, Gujarat with 1.6, Punjab 1.5 and J&K 1.4 and Uttarakhand with 1.8 are below the replacement rate. So it is quite natural that a conflicting situation is evolving if the population is made the sole criteria.  

A few opposition Chief Ministers a few days ago met in Chennai under the stewardship of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and demanded that delimitation exercise should be postponed for another 25 years from 2026. Southern states, which contribute disproportionately to India’s GDP and tax revenue, fear diminished representation will weaken their say in national policy-making, exacerbating north-south disparities. The linkage of delimitation with the Women’s Reservation Act (2023), which reserves one-third of seats for women post-delimitation, has further strengthened the opposition.

Similar demands are also coming from the people of hill states particularly from Uttarakhand, where the people of hills fear massive reduction in assembly seats due to migration of population and thus threatening the fundamentals of creation of a hill states considering the geography and culture of the people necessitating a different planned way of development. Uttarakhnad’s 70-member Legislative Assembly currently reflects a population-based delimitation from 2008, with 34 seats in hill districts and 36 in the plains, despite the hills covering over 90% of the state’s area. During last delimitation the state hills lost six seats due to migration from hills to plains—over 32 lakh people since 2000, has reduced hill populations, skewing representation further toward urban plains like Dehradun and Haridwar. An area-based approach could rebalance this by allocating more seats to hill districts like Badrinath constituency covers 4,631 sq km with poor road connectivity. Similar is situation in Uttarkashi, Pithoragarh, Chamoli and all other districts. Uttarakhand gained statehood for a hill-centric development after decades of neglect within Uttar Pradesh. Population-based delimitation has exacerbated this neglect as hill districts lost six seats in 2006-2008, slowing development and fuelling migration, leaving over 1,700 “ghost villages” by 2020.

Thus in nutshell, as the time have changed and change is inevitable for this our constitution allows flexibility with dynamism reflecting the aspirations of changing society, the country thus need to amend the population based delimitation exercise. Country can ill afford encouragement for population growth any more. The delimitation principle allows population criteria in Article 82 and 170 ‘so far as practicable’ while ensuring equal representation. There is a precedent in Article 371 with special provisions for north eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland, where delimitation considers factors beyond population, including terrain and administrative needs. Uttarakhand, a Himalayan state with 92.7% of its 53,483 square kilometres classified as hilly, certainly qualifies for similar exceptions, given its rugged topography and sparse population density in hill districts. Similarly, in plain areas some sort of limit should be fixed so that equity between north and south states in terms of number of seats in Lok Sabha does not compromise the achievements of population control in these states. A state specific approach could be evolved including consideration digressively proportionate representation like in Europe especially for the plain areas. Whatever, the issue of delimitation has to be dealt with by all political parties and can no longer be side stepped? 1050 words