Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday, April 11, alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government is using the women’s reservation as a “weapon” to tackle the opposition before taking up the delimitation exercise based on population.
“The Union government is not concerned about implementing reservations for women. If their concerns were genuine, they could have done it right away. Rather than doing that, the BJP-led Union is thinking of using it as a weapon to tackle opposition and take up the delimitation exercise based on population,” Stalin was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
According to the report, the CM reportedly urged the BJP to immediately implement the women’s reservation without initiating the delimitation exercise. He also spoke about his efforts to resist the proposed exercise and attacked the Leader of the Opposition and CM face of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Edappadi K Palaniswami, for being “mute” over the issue.
Delimitation is the process of redrawing Lok Sabha constituency boundaries to ensure proportional representation based on population. However, southern states, including Tamil Nadu, have expressed strong apprehension that such an exercise could reduce their parliamentary representation, as population growth has been relatively higher in northern states.
Currently, Lok Sabha seats are allocated based on the 1971 Census, with delimitation frozen for over five decades. The freeze was first extended during the Emergency and later prolonged by the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee until 2026 to incentivise population control.
Southern states argue that a fresh delimitation based on population would penalise them for successfully implementing population control measures while benefiting states with higher population growth.
Last year, the Tamil Nadu government convened an all-party meeting to oppose the move, which was attended by multiple parties, including the AIADMK, despite its alliance with the BJP.
Recently, Stalin warned the Union government over renewed talks of delimitation. “Do not turn a calm south into a storm,” he warned.
“Why is the Union BJP government shrouding the entire delimitation process in secrecy instead of coming clean on how it intends to carry it out?” Stalin asked in a statement issued on April 8.
He asked why there was a tearing hurry to convene a special session of Parliament right in the middle of five state elections.