‘States should not lose proportional share’: Pinarayi voices delimitation concerns, expresses solidarity with Stalin

An official communication from the Kerala Chief Minister’s Office said Vijayan expressed his solidarity with the meeting on the issue. The Tamil Nadu leaders invited Vijayan for the meeting against the Centre’s move to redraw Lok Sabha constituencies “flouting the values of democracy and federalism”, said the release.

Later, Vijayan issued a statement saying delimitation should be carried out without reducing the existing proportional share of seats of any state. The Union government’s arguments that the south Indian states would get additional seats on a pro-rata basis cannot be taken at face value, he said. “The Centre has not been able to clarify whether this pro-rata distribution will be based on the percentage of the current parliamentary seats or on the basis of population figures. In either case, south Indian states are bound to lose representation,” he said.

“States that have effectively implemented population control measures should not be punished. It is unfair to reduce the proportional representation in Parliament of states that have reduced their population in accordance with the population control programmes and family planning policies introduced by the Union government after Independence. It would be tantamount to rewarding the states that have failed in all these,” the Chief Minister’s statement said.

He demanded that the Centre alleviate the fears of the south Indian states and said it was the Union government’s responsibility to refrain from unilateral measures and preserve the essence of democracy and federalism.