Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan backs Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin’s push against delimitation

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said that he supports efforts being made by the Tamil Nadu government against the proposed delimitation exercise to redraw the boundary of Lok Sabha constituencies.

On March 7, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin called on the leaders of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, West Bengal, Odisha and Punjab to form a joint action committee against the exercise.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief urged his counterparts in the seven states to join the committee for its first meeting in Chennai on March 22.

On Friday, Vijayan said that he had met Tamil Nadu’s IT and Digital Services Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan and South Chennai MP Thamizhachi Thangapandian, who invited him for the committee meeting.

“Stand in solidarity on this pressing issue,” the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader said on social media.

Delimitation is the process of fixing boundaries of territorial constituencies. Article 82 of the Constitution states that after every census is completed, the allocation of Lok Sabha seats to each state must be adjusted based on changes in their population.

The composition of the current Lok Sabha is based on the 1971 census. According to the 84th Amendment Act of 2001, the constituency boundaries were frozen until the first census after 2026, which would be due in 2031.

However, southern states have expressed concern that population-based delimitation could give an undue advantage to northern and central states in the Lok Sabha.

In a press statement on Friday, Vijayan said that states affected by the proposed exercise were coming together to resist the attempt to unilaterally delimit parliamentary constituencies, which he said was throwing the values ​​of democracy and federalism to the wind, The Hindu reported.

“The Union government should be ready to take a decision on the issue of delimitation of Lok Sabha seats after arriving at a consensus with the states,” the statement said. “It should be carried out without reducing the existing proportional share of seats of any state.”

The states that implemented population control measures effectively in line with family planning policies introduced by Union governments after Independence should not be penalised, the chief minister added.

“It would be tantamount to rewarding states that have failed in such measures,” he was quoted as saying.

The Union government’s arguments that the southern states would get additional share of Lok Sabha seats on a pro-rata basis cannot be taken at face value, Vijayan said. He added that the Union government had not been able to provide clarity about whether the distribution of seats would be based on the percentage of the current parliamentary seats or on the basis of the population.

Southern states stand to lose representation in either case, the chief minister said. It is the responsibility of the Union government to avoid unilateral measures and preserve the essence of democracy and federalism, he was quoted as saying.

In a letter to his counterparts to join the joint action committee, Stalin had called the proposed delimitation exercise a “blatant assault on federalism” and said that “the essence of India’s democracy rests on its federal character – a system that gives each state its rightful voice while honouring our sacred unity as one nation”.

He added: “Those states who controlled their population and achieved superior governance indicators will face an unjust punishment – reduced representation in the very forum where national policies are determined.”

The Tamil Nadu chief minister said that he was not against the delimitation process. “What we oppose is its weaponisation against states that fulfilled their national duties, thus punishing progress,” he wrote.

On Thursday, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leaders invited Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi leaders to the committee meeting, The Indian Express reported.

Congress’ Reddy said that while he had “in principle” agreed to attend the meeting, he would seek permission from the party leadership, The Indian Express reported.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s Working President KT Rama Rao accepted the invitation.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asked his deputy, DK Shivakumar, to attend the meeting.

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