So, the cat is finally out of the bag. With the Union Cabinet deciding to embrace the reports of the Delimitation Commission on redrawing the boundaries of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies, the political parties will have go back to the drawing board to work out new strategies for all upcoming elections, except that of north-eastern states.

As many as 11 states are lined up for elections during this year, but perhaps Karnataka – which is first in the queue – will kickstart the experiment by going before the electorate as per the new electoral map. But, hold on, there could still be a few twists and turns before it actually happens.

The Delimitation Commission headed by that mercurial former Supreme Court judge, justice Kuldip Singh completed its task in respect of 25 states last August. It virtually bulldozed its way, brushing aside objections from filibustering politicians across the country. There was fierce opposition in states like West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and voices of dissent even in ‘milder’ states like Karnataka, but justice Kuldip Singh had his way. The work is held up only in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand as issues regarding migrants and scheduled tribes need to be sorted out.

A remarkable feature of the delimitation exercise undertaken after 32 years – though the Constitution mandated it to be once in every 10 years – is that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will get more representation in Parliament and the Assemblies in terms of their population. There will also be more equitable distribution of voters and more seats in urban segments in tune with the migration witnessed in the last three decades.
The politicians are generally unhappy that rural and semi-urban areas – which they had converted into their pocket borough – will get less representation. There is, of course, a genuine apprehension that backward and neglected regions which are crying for more development, will get even less attention with the shifting of political power to urban centres. This aspect should have been taken into consideration while finalising the terms of reference of the commission.

The UPA government at the Centre which has been hit by a series of poll reverses ever since it came to power in May 2004, sat over the commission’s recommendations for six months. With the impending elections to the Karnataka Assembly along with queries from the Supreme Court based on a public interest litigation on the issue, forced the Union Cabinet to act and it has decided to take the plunge.

Karnataka was brought under President’s rule on November 28, 2007 and in normal course, the elections should have been held before May 28 this year. The Congress party, one of the main protagonists in the state, desperately wanted more time to face the electorate and the delimitation has come in handy to delay the process.

The Election Commission was ready with the new electoral rolls, but in the new scenario, it will need another six months, if not more, to prepare the ground for elections. It is unfortunate that the people will be deprived of a popular government for a longer period than originally envisaged, but they may not be too displeased with the breather considering the murky political developments of the last three years.

Now, which political party is going to gain from the redrawing of boundaries? Nearly 85 per cent of the 224 Assembly constituencies are going to change either drastically or marginally - unsettling the caste equations which had worked so far - but nobody is quite sure how it will impact on the prospects of various political parties. Leaders like Veerappa Moily and Oscar Fernandes think it will benefit the Congress, but others with their ears to the ground are not so certain.

One of the calculations is that since the number of reserved seats will go up from 36 to 51, with Mallikarjun Kharge as KPCC president, the Congress will reap the rewards. It may surely do if Kharge is declared the party’s chief minister candidate, but the catch is that Congress will not muster enough courage to do so for the fear of antagonising the other major communities!

The delimitation will involve a lot of hair-splitting work for the Election Commission as the villages, wards or streets along the boundaries of almost every constituency will have to be carefully ‘dissected’ and redistributed according to the parameters set by the Delimitation Commission, public objections called and redressed satisfactorily...all of which may go on till at least August or September.

As states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir are also scheduled to go for polls later this year, Karnataka may well get tagged on to them and an election window might open in November. Then again, it will get too close to the next general elections to the Lok Sabha and there is every possibility around that time the Congress high command will look at the larger picture than merely at Karnataka.

At that stage, the Congress leadership’s perception of how it is likely to perform in all these states, what impact it will have on the Lok Sabha polls and where it stands vis-a-vis the Left parties may all come into the calculus. So, as it stands, when will the Karnataka elections be held is anybody’s guess.