Over seven years have gone by since the Centre set in motion the process redrawing Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies across the country by setting up the Delimitation Commission. That is really a long time, by any yardstick. However, the exercise remains incomplete till date and uncertainty persists about holding the first election in the country under redrawn boundaries of Lok Sabha and assembly seats. Unless and until the seats are revamped, existing anomalies that have compounded over the years will only continue. Delhi, for instance, sends seven members to the Lok Sabha but while the MP from the New Delhi seat represents just about six to seven lakh voting citizens, the MP from the Outer Delhi constituency represents well over 30 lakh voters.

Yet, neither political leaders nor parties seem to be in a hurry to accept and implement redrawn boundaries of constituencies as per the Delimitation Commission recommendations. The fears about uncertainties of change seem to be the most important reason for delays in enforcing the changes though other reasons exist too. Last Thursday, the Union Cabinet decided to issue an ordinance, which would, among others, authorise itself, the power to implement the delimitation of seats state-wise, either in one go or in stages. This provision has brought smiles to the faces of many politicians in Karnataka who were beginning to worry about the prospects of facing the mid-term assembly polls under redrawn assembly constituencies.

The fear factor apart, the delimitation exercise has perhaps exposed a certain degree of lack of foresight and clarity on the part of political parties when they cleared the delimitation act in Parliament five years ago. Fortunately, due to leaders like P A Sangma the application of population parity principle for delimitation of Lok Sabha seats on a state-by-state basis averted a potentially more contentious issue. Otherwise, states that have done well in population control policy implementation would have lost some Lok Sabha seats to states that have abysmally failed in population control programme. Now, fresh complications are seen in states like Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh, which are among the first states where the delimitation exercise has been stalled. It is about reduction of seats for Scheduled Tribes in Jharkhand in general or for certain tribes in particular in Arunachal. These and other issues such as reduction of hill seats in essentially hill states like Uttarakhand should have been foreseen and appropriate guidelines for delimitation issued at the very outset of the exercise rather than raise those questions now.