The north-south divide in India has got a fresh lease of life due to the rekindling of the issue of delimitation by the BJP led Central government. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has taken the lead on behalf of the southern states to oppose the Centre’s proposed delimitation exercise using post-2026 census to redraw the Lok Sabha constituencies on the basis of population. Though Stalin has his own electoral calculations with the coming Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, the Centre’s move does cause concern for fair parliamentary election process. The Tamil Nadu CM on decided 9 March to send senior functionaries of his party – DMK – to meet Chief Ministers and senior politicians from seven states, including Orissa and West Bengal, to rally support for his campaign against the Centre’s planned delimitation exercise. Similar delegations will be sent to AAP-governed Punjab and Congress-run Telangana and Karnataka.
Stalin had last week written to the CMs and other key politicians of these seven states, explaining the TN govt’s position against population-based delimitation. Calling it “an unfair exercise,” he had stated the Centre’s plan was a “blatant assault on federalism, punishing states that ensured population control and good governance by stripping away our rightful voice in Parliament.”
Also Read
The concern is that the proposed delimitation will reshape the country’s power map, reducing the political might of southern states at the Centre. The concern is not simply restricted to Tamil Nadu and other southern states. It will affect states like Orissa too. There are speculations that most of these states may not see decrease in the number of Lok Sabha seats existing in their respective states. Their number of Lok Sabha seats may remain static. What is expected is that the new Census will be tampered to show a phenomenal rise in population in the states where the BJP feels comfortable with Hindi and Hindutva. That could mean a big rise in the number of Lok Sabha seats in those states. In turn this could imply that the southern states will be politically marginalized and under privileged and can be safely neglected.
When the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a narrow majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it was tell-tale evidence of its waning popularity after a decade in power. This seems to have infused fear into the BJP that a victory in 2029 may elude it. In its desperation to hold on to power, the government’s push to redraw parliamentary constituencies using post-2026 census data is being interpreted as an attempt to tilt the electoral field in its favour. The process ensures each Member of Parliament represents an equal number of voters. Since 1976, however, it has been frozen to avoid penalising Indian states that curbed population growth. If delimitation proceeds, the BJP’s populous northern strongholds will gain seats, weakening the political power of the country’s economically dynamic and culturally distinct southern states governed by different regional parties. The southern states have accused the Modi government of bias in federal funding and project approvals.
The six largest northern states have over 60 crore people – twice the south’s population – but lag far behind in education, health, industry and economic development. Tamil Nadu thrives on industry, education and social mobility, with only 6 per cent in poverty compared with 23 per cent in Bihar. A child in Kerala has better survival chances than any other state. UP’s record on this score is among the worst in the country. On the other hand, UP alone receives more federal tax revenue than all five southern states put together. In this sense for southern India delimitation represents both economic and political marginalisation – being taxed more, represented less and sidelined in national policymaking.
A recent paper by Paris’ Institut Montaigne think-tank highlights how India’s north-south divide is deepening due to economic, demographic and political disparities causing concern for the southern states. It compares the situation to the EU’s Greek debt crisis, where wealthier northern countries expressed their fury over subsidising the poorer southern ones. The report considers Modi’s home state of Gujarat – a wealthy but highly unequal western state with slow population growth – but warns that the Hindi speaking north’s larger populace and lack of socioeconomic progress will deepen tensions and drag the country down.
The Indian economist Jean Drèze has opined if seats were redistributed by population while maintaining state-wise party shares, the BJP alliance would have won 309 MPs, not 294, in the 2024 LS polls. The Centre’s push for delimitation appears to be geared to that objective for the 2029 LS polls, when rising discontent could further ruin the prospect of the BJP retaining power.
This type of delimitation exercise resorted to by ruling political parties is known as gerrymandering. The term, rooted in US politics, describes the practice of redrawing electoral district boundaries to provide one political party with an unfair advantage over its competitors (known as political or partisan gerrymandering) or to weaken the voting power of ethnic or linguistic minority groups (referred to as racial gerrymandering). The term originates from Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, whose administration implemented a law in 1812 that established new state senatorial districts.
The irony is, as experts point out, such gerrymandering exercise does have chances to backfire. But, the risk is seen by ruling parties as being worth taking. There lies the rub which could weaken and damage India for a long time to come.
