Crime Today News
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s campaign against the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies is increasingly drawing support from parties across the political spectrum in South India. But it is also making his allies in the Hindi belt uncomfortable.
Delimitation refers to the process of redrawing the boundaries of constituencies to reflect the latest population numbers. But in India, delimitation has not been conducted at the national level since 1976. The number of Lok Sabha MPs of each state has been frozen since then.
However, if constituencies were to be redrawn in the near future, states in the South are expected to see their representation in the Lok Sabha decrease. This is because they have been successful in limiting the growth of their populations – but northern, Hindi-speaking states have not.
As a result, a demand to continue the delimitation freeze for three more decades was made at an all-party meeting convened by the Tamil Nadu government on March 5.
However, Stalin’s strong stand has created a rift in the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. In theory, INDIA parties in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that are estimated to gain more seats are sympathetic to concerns about the South getting sidelined. However, they do not agree with Stalin’s main operational demand: to defer the process for another 30 years.
Rather than be “stalled indefinitely”, the INDIA bloc’s Hindi belt parties – such as the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar – favour finding a “middle path” by consensus mechanisms such as joint parliamentary committees or all-party meetings.
‘Democratic process must continue’
Scroll spoke to six opposition parties with presence in the North, West and East. All said that carrying out delimitation solely on the basis of population would penalise the South for its success in family planning. However, most of them also underlined that Lok Sabha constituencies were getting too large and, as a result, their voters were underrepresented in Parliament. Some spoke of the need to devise a “scientific” and “just” formula that would be acceptable to all.
“Delimitation of parliamentary constituencies must be done,” said Samajwadi Party’s spokesperson Udaiveer Singh, pointing to Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand as an example of regions that had been hurt by the delay. “It is such a big area starting from Chitrakoot and Banda but limited to just three-four parliamentary constituencies. The democratic process must continue.”
Singh spoke about the close historical ties to South Indian politicians shared by his party’s founder, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, and their ideological overlap on issues of social justice, secularism and regional identity as a way to allay Tamil fears of getting railroaded by the Hindi belt in the Union legislature.
“As long as the DMK is in alliance with us, we will never allow their interests to be negatively affected,” he added. “If the Samajwadi Party had 60 MPs [it currently has 41 in both Houses], would we not stand behind Stalin? We would certainly support him. There is no dissonance at all.”
Rashtriya Janata Dal’s national spokesperson Jayant Jigyasu said he understood the “sense of disenfranchisement” created by the prospect of delimitation in the South but was still in favour of it.
“Delimitation should be carried out without creating a binary between the North and the South,” he said. “If the Delimitation Commission’s members address the concerns and doubts of people, a way can be found. We should all sit together and come to a balanced point of view.”
Jigyasu too identified the present size of constituencies as “a real concern” in the Hindi belt. “When there were fewer voters, it was easier to reach them,” he said. “But now there are so many voters in a single constituency.”
A growing unease with Stalin’s politics
With a year to go before Tamil Nadu’s Assembly election, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has put its opposition to delimitation at the forefront of its agenda. The party’s MPs walked out of the Rajya Sabha on March 10 when their demand for a discussion on delimitation was not heeded.
Its representatives are travelling from state to state to enlist support for their anti-delimitation campaign and invite other parties’ leaders to Chennai to participate in a March 22 meeting of the joint action committee formed to take it forward. But some of the party’s allies beyond the South are not convinced if the issue has any political appeal in their regions.
“Most of us are figuring out if it really matters to us,” a party official from Western India told Scroll, requesting anonymity to discuss his party’s political outlook more candidly. “Is getting caught up in a national debate that we are not steering the best way? Very often what we have seen is that the DMK actually gains by making it a Tamil Nadu versus the rest of the country issue.”
Trinamool Congress MP and national spokesperson Saket Gokhale declined comment saying his party’s priority was to push against the duplication of voter identity numbers.
At a mass wedding ceremony in Chennai that he attended on March 12, Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin asked couples to prioritise having children immediately because the state was being “punished” for controlling population growth.
Earlier, his father and Chief Minister MK Stalin had jokingly blessed newly-weds at a similar event to give birth to 16 children.
“All this is reactionary and all this is taking India back,” said Congress party’s MP Vivek Tankha. “As public representatives, it’s our constitutional duty and responsibility to chariot the country forward towards the modern age with a scientific temper.”
Tankha, however, agreed with the DMK that deferring delimitation for the time being was the “best answer” for maintaining peace.
Blaming BJP to conceal cracks
Most party officials downplayed disagreements within the alliance and blamed the BJP for failing to address the anxieties stemming from delimitation in the South.
Some even tried to explain away derogatory comments about the Hindi belt made by politicians from Tamil Nadu. “The politics of the South has always been more aggressive,” argued Samajwadi Party’s Singh.
“When the dominant leadership in the country presents a dictatorial approach, which is dismissive of the Constitution and the federal structure, then you will see a reaction that is not nuanced,” said Ghanshyam Tiwari, another spokesperson from the same party. “The prime minister has not shown the leadership to bring all parties to the table.”
Others like the communists, who participated in Stalin’s all-party meeting on March 5, said they oppose delimitation on principle even if it leads to more seats in states where they enjoy some support, such as Bihar and West Bengal.
“The delimitation exercise is part of a larger plan to destroy whatever federalism that remains,” said Shankar V, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation’s Polit Bureau. The party won 12 seats in Bihar’s 2020 Assembly election as well as two Lok Sabha seats from the state in 2024.
“We are not a party from one region but an all India party,” said Kumar Parvez, who is in chargmedia in-charge for Bihar. “We don’t engage in narrow, vote bank politics. We won’t fall into the trap of populism for a few votes and start talking against the South.”
Ruchi Gupta, executive director of the Future of India Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank that focuses on India’s demographic dividend, said the politics over delimitation in Tamil Nadu is unlikely to create a major rift in the alliance because it is not organically a “street issue” in the Hindi belt.
“The current politics has sharpened because of trust deficit between various stakeholders, which has become worse because the Southern states are primarily Opposition-ruled states,” she said. “What can be done to restore a sense of trust, especially by the BJP since it is in power at the Centre, must be thought through in national interest.”
📰 Crime Today News is proudly sponsored by DRYFRUIT.CO – A Brand by eFabby Global LLC
Design & Developed by Yes Mom Hosting
