“The delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies must be frozen for another 25 years so that the country can attain demographic stability across all regions,” said retired bureaucrat PV Ramesh IAS, who has served as the former Special Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh. He made this remark during a heated discussion in TNM’s South Central podcast airing on February 28.
TNM discussed the delimitation exercise in detail in light of the recent all-party meeting convened by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, who called it a “sword hanging over southern states.” This was countered by Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s claim that the South would not be at a disadvantage.
As Ramesh explained, the current strength of the lower house of the parliament – 543 seats – was determined by the delimitation exercise of 1971, based on the census data from the same year.
In 1976, during the Emergency Rule, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government passed the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution that froze the delimitation exercise. This was repeated by the government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001.
“While the decadal growth rate in population was approximately 20% in Uttar Pradesh between 2001 and 2011, it was only around 5-6% in a state like Kerala. For the country to attain demographic stability, we will need to freeze the delimitation exercise at the population levels of the 1971 census for another 25 years,” Ramesh explained.
He also insisted that when the delimitation exercise is carried out, it should be on a pro rata basis.
The South Central podcast also discussed the Karnataka government’s recent declaration of the end of Naxalism in the state. On this, Ramesh said, “The police force dedicated to curb armed rebellion needs to be redeployed to address other emerging issues, for instance, cyber crime. Resources need to be redeployed for new age, productive tasks rather than chase the ghosts that have retreated into darkness.”
Recently, the Karnataka government had declared the state ‘Naxal-free’ after eight cadres of the CPI (Maoist) surrendered in January this year. TNM had published an in-depth story on the same, tracing the history of the Maoist movement in the state. It looks at both the limits of violent resistance and the efforts initiated by civil society activists. The story also looks into how internal contradictions within the Maoist movement and the rebels’ realisation that they had been isolated from the very people they took up arms for, also played a role. Read the comprehensive story on our website.
The 16th episode of TNM’s weekly podcast South Central discusses the delimitation exercise and the “end of Naxalism” in detail. Tune into the podcast here:
