Why delimitation fears of Southern states matter

Are the fears of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin about delimitation of parliamentary constituencies real or is he in search of emotive issues for the Assembly elections due in April/May 2026?

Although delimitation of constituencies will not happen soon enough to affect the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections next year, the unanimous support from most of the southern states for Stalin’s all-party meeting on delimitation indicates that the fear is real.

It is also possible that delimitation may take place sooner than expected. The widely held assumption that delimitation of parliamentary constituencies will happen only after the 2031 Census could turn out to be wrong.

The delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies was frozen through the 84th Constitution Amendment Act 2001 till 2026 ‘as a motivational measure to enable the State Government to pursue the agenda for population stabilisation’.

This was to prevent disadvantage in terms of political representation accruing to states that had performed well in family planning (e.g. the southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh). The deadline of 2026 assumes that any delimitation exercise could be conducted only after the first census after the deadline — the Census of 2031.

However, the possibility of the delayed 2021 census being notified now and published by 2027 could pull the date forward.

It would become the first census after the deadline of 2026 and delimitation of parliamentary constituencies could be carried out based on the population figures it throws up. This would impact the 2029 general elections where the number of Lok Sabha seats could be substantially larger and redistributed afresh on the basis of delimitation.

Chief ministers of the southern states probably see the Narendra Modi government moving towards delimitation before the next general elections. Indeed, the construction of a new parliament building was justified by the government, claiming in the Rajya Sabha that, “the number of Lok Sabha seats is likely to go up and the present building does not have any space to house any additional member”.

The new parliament building can house 888 Lok Sabha MPs (expandable to 1,272 if needed) from the current 543 and 384 Rajya Sabha MPs from the current 250.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured at a public meeting in Coimbatore that, “The Narendra Modi government has clarified in the Lok Sabha that after delimitation, on the basis of pro rata, not a single seat of any southern state will come down”.

He offered no clarity on whether in the “pro rata” calculation, seats will be in proportion to a state’s existing share in the total number of seats, on the basis of projected population or on the latest Census, which is due.

What has added to the confusion is a 2019 study conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace based on two scenarios of delimitation.

The first scenario, based on a projected population of 2026 visualised a redistribution of the current 543 Lok Sabha seats. In this, the four north Indian states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh collectively gained 31 seats while the five southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh collectively lost 26 seats.

In the second scenario, again based on population projections for 2026, the Carnegie study saw the total number of Lok Sabha seats increase to 838. In redistribution, UP’s share went up to 143 seats (from 80), Bihar to 79 (from 40), Rajasthan to 50 (from 25) and Madhya Pradesh to 52 (from 29). Collectively these four north Indian states gained150 seats.

On the other hand, the four south Indian states gained only 35 seats — Tamil Nadu would go up to 49 (from 39), Telangana plus Andhra Pradesh to 54 (from 42), Karnataka to 41 (from 28), and Kerala would remain the same (20).

This was merely a scenario analysis and had no basis on any criteria announced by the government for delimitation. However, it did show the broad tendency of declining political weightage of the south if population alone were used in delimitation.

In effect, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be the political gainer because of the increased weight of the North Indian states in the Lok Sabha.

The most recent delimitation exercise in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, (both for the Assembly as well as the Lok Sabha), gives further reason for disquiet.

The process followed by the delimitation commission in the UT left it open to charges of gerrymandering; skewing distribution and numbers of seats in favour of the ruling party at the Centre.

The commission played on the ambiguities of the provisions of the Delimitation Act 2022. Clause (1)(a) of the Act states: ‘all constituencies shall, as far as practicable, be geographically compact areas, and in delimiting them, regard shall be had to physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience.’

This allowed the commission to depart from population as the primary criterion and skew the distribution of seven additional Assembly seats in favour of the Hindu-dominated Jammu region (it was allotted six of the seven additional seats) simultaneously disadvantaging Muslim-dominated Kashmir (which only received on one additional seat), deepening its underrepresentation in the Assembly.

It defined new criteria apart from population for delimitation and used them selectively to demarcate constituencies. This was especially stark in its doubling the permissible deviation in population for defining constituencies based on whether they were predominantly hilly, mixed, or predominantly flat, ultimately favouring the Jammu region.

A detailed analysis of the exercise found ‘methodological inconsistencies, extreme deviations between different assembly constituencies and arbitrary assigning of population averages between different districts’ with Jammu division making substantial gains. The Lok Sabha constituencies remained at five but their geographical boundaries were changed, once again leading to allegations of bias.

Unless there is a consensus about the methodology of delimitation the southern states may have reasons to be worried. Demographic reform must be rewarded and not punished for partisan benefits. After all, the long-term slowing of population growth reflects improved social indicators for women compared to the Hindi-belt states.

Even if additional criteria are decided for delimitation, the process cannot be left to the government-appointed delimitation commission as the J&K example has shown. Unless the southern states are on board, a delimitation exercise could impact India in unforeseen ways.

(Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.