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The Population Foundation of India (PFI), which promotes and advocates effective formulation and implementation of gender sensitive population, health and development strategies and policies, has called for repeal of two-child rule in the wake of a man killing his daughter to enable him contest the zilla parishad polls in Maharashtra.
According to reports, Pandurang Kondmangale, a resident of Kerur village in Mukhed taluka in Nanded district of Maharashtra, allegedly pushed her six-year-old daughter into a canal in Nizamabad district of Telangana. As he had a three-year-old boy and twin girls aged six, he was ineligible to contest in view of the two-child norm for candidates contesting local body polls in Maharashtra.
Taking serious cognizance of the incident, PFI said that the act cannot be written off as a singular instance of cruelty. It is the terrible result of a legislative framework that equates political rights with reproductive choices and makes children, especially daughters, seem like liabilities.
The PFI has, for over two decades, consistently opposed the two-child norm. Our position, consistent with the International Conference on Population Development (1994) and National Population Policy (2000), has remained clear: fertility decisions must be voluntary, informed and rights-based.
Policies that enforce family size through punitive measures, such as disqualifying citizens from contesting local elections, are unconstitutional, anti-poor and deeply discriminatory against women
“India does not have a two-child norm at the national level, and that reflects both constitutional values and demographic reality,” said Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India.
“We strongly urge the states that continue to retain the two-child norm to repeal it immediately. No democratic system should link political participation to the number of children a person has,” she added.
“There is strong empirical evidence that the two-child norm causes serious harm without delivering demographic benefits. A detailed study by former IAS officer Nirmala Buch, which examined the impact of the policy across five Indian states, documented increases in unsafe and sex-selective abortions, men divorcing their wives (sometimes on paper) to remain eligible for elections, and children being abandoned or given up for adoption. Crucially, the study found no sustained reduction in fertility, showing that the policy fails even on its stated objective. So there’s absolutely no rationale for a two-child norm,” the PFI said.
At least eleven states introduced a two-child norm, almost always by disqualifying candidates from panchayat elections: Rajasthan (1992), Odisha (1993), Haryana (1994), Andhra Pradesh (1994), Himachal Pradesh (2000), Madhya Pradesh (2000), Chhattisgarh (2000), Uttarakhand (2002), Maharashtra (2003), Gujarat (2005), and Assam (2017).
Several states—including Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana—later repealed the law after recognising the social damage it caused.
“The pattern itself reveals the problem,” Muttreja said. “These restrictions apply only at the lowest level of political participation, never to MLAs or Members of Parliament. If the two-child norm were genuinely about responsible citizenship or population stabilisation, it would apply uniformly. It does not, because it is designed to control the lives of the rural poor while leaving elites untouched.”
This case is made even more concerning by the demographic background. About 20 years ago, Maharashtra's fertility reached replacement level; according to NFHS-5 data, at 1.7, the state's fertility is already significantly below 2.1. The state is dealing with ageing and slowing population growth rather than a population explosion. Thus, coercive population policies have no demographic basis.
“Not only the individual father, we must also hold accountable the states that uphold or justify two-child norms in spite of overwhelming evidence of harm are also accountable,” Muttreja said. Laws influence behaviour, and violence is a result of laws that penalise families for their reproductive choices rather than an exception.