Democracy is an amalgamation of a rich variety of Individual differences that make up a country and its people.
Democracy is the demonstration of the will of the people done through an intermediary who then acts as their representative. Hence, there should be enough intermediaries in order to represent the ever-increasing and ever-changing dynamics of a country’s population.
What exactly is Delimitation?
Delimitation is the act of redrawing boundaries of the Lok Sabha and Assembly segments to represent changes in population. As per Article 81 of the Constitution, the composition of the Lok Sabha should represent changes in the population.
The idea of an equal number of voters for each Lok Sabha constituency has long been contentious and controversial. Southern states in particular like Kerala and Tamil Nadu argue that they will get punished due to their successful family planning programs while high-population states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan increase their political clout (as their population equals a higher number of seats). Since 1971, parliamentary constituencies have been frozen regardless of the enormous disparities in the country’s population and their respective representatives.
Allocation of seats
The population is the sole basis for allocating seats to the Lok Sabha. Every State gets representation in the Lok Sabha in proportion to its population as per census figures which are updated every 10 years. Under Article 82 of the Constitution, the Parliament by law enacts a Delimitation Act after every census. After coming into force commencement of the Act, the Central Government constitutes a Delimitation Commission. This Delimitation Commission demarcates the boundaries of the Parliamentary Constituencies as per provisions of the Delimitation Act.
What makes it so controversial?
The main reason why the delimitation of the seats is so controversial can be seen by looking through the pages of India's political and social history. The Union government had put a freeze on the delimitation in 1976 until after the 2001 census so that any implementation of family planning programs and techniques would not affect the respective political representation in the Lok Sabha.
The main logic behind this was that the States who perform well in the implementation of Family Planning techniques should not be punished by decreasing their representation in the Parliament.
The southern states are especially concerned as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, including the Telangana region, since they would lose MPs, not just in relative, but even absolute numbers if a national norm on the number of electors per MP was to be accepted, thereby leading to the political marginalization of the south, and the consolidation of the Hindi speaking states.
Balancing of Democratic Interest
The current freeze on Delimitation is a fascinating insight into how short-sightedness results in future repercussions. The suspension of delimitation in the 1970s was supposed to be a temporary solution so as to not penalize states for implementing family planning techniques successfully. What resulted was the stark difference in how the techniques and programs were implemented which led to the huge disparity in representation.
Southern states do indeed have a right in complaining that they will get punished for controlling population growth. Delimitation will take away their political representation for no fault of theirs other than trying their best in controlling the population growth.
The other side of the argument is that our Constitution does mandate a delimitation of parliamentary constituencies based on the recurring census data every 10 years. This makes sense since Democracy is a representative form of government wherein the people need to elect their own representatives to handle the administration of the country. Hence, there should be an accurate representation of the electorate corresponding to the changing population dynamics of the society.
Impact of the freeze on Delimitation
The impact of the freeze on Delimitation has resulted in the enormous disparity in the representation of the electorate population between and within the different states. It is even more apparent when you take a look at the major Urban constituencies.
Several cities and regions have experienced dramatic growth between the freeze on delimitation in 1976 and the present day. This results in Urban constituencies representing a huge electorate but with few representatives. This disparity is indeed unacceptable since every voter in the country is an important part of India’s equitable development and should not be left behind.
In India the discrepancy between constituency electorates is enormous. The largest constituency for the 1999 election, Outer Delhi with 3,101,838 voters, was more than 86 times larger than the smallest constituency, Lakshadweep with 35,716 voters. Amongst large states where there are no significant geographical constraints on constituency boundaries, a vote in Calcutta North West, with 698,009 electors, is worth almost four times as much as the one in Thane in Maharashtra, where there are 2,771,746 electors.
Future ahead
A single mention of the impending lift on the freeze of delimitation leads to verbal battles and hysteria. The construction of the New Parliament building which can seat up to 888 MP's has increased the worry of the Southern States who will have to pay the price of implementing family planning techniques successfully in comparison to the Northern States which have done a lackluster performance in controlling the population growth.
If the freeze on delimitation is lifted in 2026 as speculated, there will be a monumental change in the political landscape of the country since there will be a consolidation of votes in the Northern, Central, and Western regions of India where the BJP is already an unstoppable force to deal with.
But in the case of South India, it will lose political representation in the Lok Sabha. This will be a preferable result for the ruling party since the BJP is weak in power when compared to their Northern counterparts.
Conclusion
The issue surrounding the delimitation will have a long and profound impact on the political landscape in the time to come. One should not be foolish enough to assume that this game of toying around with political representation will be without any repercussions or consequences.
References
Delimitation of Constituencies https://eci.gov.in/faqs/elections/delimitation-of-constituencies/faqs-delimitation-of-constituencies-r6/ .
K. C. Sivaramakrishnan. (1997). Under-Franchise in Urban Areas: Freeze on Delimitation of Constituencies and Resultant Disparities. Economic and Political Weekly, 32(51), 3275–3281. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406206
Insightful article 👏