Opinion Two possible ways to solve India’s delimitation deadlock

In the constitutional scheme of things, only Parliament has the power to make laws relevant to delimitation. Article 327 states: “…. Parliament may from time to time by law make provision with respect to all matters relating to, or in connection with, elections to either House of Parliament or to the House or either House of the Legislature of a State including …… the delimitation of constituencies and all other matters necessary for securing the due constitution of such House or Houses.” Empowered as such and in compliance with the constitutional requirements, Parliament sets up a centralised Delimitation Commission to carry out the whole exercise of delimitation, including redistribution of LS seats. Quite clearly, federal units have no say in how the delimitation exercise ought to be carried out.

Given that “population” is the primary basis of (re)distribution of LS seats across federal units according to Article 81 (2a), and that population growth across regions has taken place quite differentially for decades, with southern states growing quite slowly as compared to other parts of the country, the implications are quite clear. If LS seats were to be redistributed in the upcoming delimitation on the basis of the population figures of the latest census, without altering the current strength of the LS, India’s political map would change drastically.

If we calculate population per seat based on projected population (estimates from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) for the year 2026 (assuming that the Census will be completed by the end of 2026), it works out to be 26.2 lakh (1,425,908,000/543 = 2,625,982). Taken together, the five southern states will lose as many as 24 seats, a loss of nearly one-fifth of seats they currently have. Kerala and Tamil Nadu run the risk of losing 6 and 9 seats respectively. In relative terms, the share of southern states in the LS will decline by five percentage points (from 23.8 per cent to 19.3 per cent). In contrast, four northern states — UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and MP — together will add a whopping 34 seats to their kitty.

It is not clear what Shah had in mind when he said that no southern state would lose a single seat. However, there are two easy ways whereby the concerns of the southern states may be addressed. The most obvious one is to freeze the existing number of seats for another two or three decades. That is, keep kicking the can down the road until there is political consensus. This is what the states facing the spectre of losing seats are in favour of. But this approach does not sit pretty with the constitutional logic of representation: Political equality. Moreover, it treats the doctrine of fair representation as subservient to the interests of federal units.

A second and seemingly uncontroversial way is to expand the size of the LS to the extent that no state loses even a single seat. Expansion of the LS up to 800 seats seems to work well. If we again consider the projected population for the year 2026, set aside 41 seats for smaller states and UTs, as they stand today, and keep the remaining 759 seats for major states (18), we obtain a per-seat quota of 17.7 lakh [divide the combined population of these states as projected for 2026 (i.e., 134,606,5000) by 759 seats]. When we apply this quota, Kerala appears to retain its existing number of LS seats, whereas all other states gain, though in varying proportions (Table 1). While this exercise may help assuage southern states’ long-held apprehension, it fails to address the hard issue of widening power asymmetry between regions fairly and squarely.

Growing disparities in the value of the vote among federal units due to the deferral of reapportionment has caused the constitutional guarantee of political equality to suffer gravely. While the problem has reached a point where the redistribution of seats across federal units cannot be delayed further, the correction of malapportionment has increasingly become a politically contentious issue, calling for an out-of-the-box solution.

Table 1: Proportional allocation of LS seats (based on projected population 2026)

Note: Calculation of population per set is done by dividing India’s projected population for 2026 by the total number of current elected seats for LS, that is: 1,425,908,000 /543 =2,625,982

Source: Projected population is taken from the Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections (2020), National Commission on Population, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The writer is associate professor, CSDS