Early signs that India will likely begin its long-delayed decennial census next year shifted attention on Monday to the arduous process of redrawing Lok Sabha constituencies. The delimitation exercise, which is likely to be completed by 2028, will be based on a census and could reopen old political representation disputes between India’s more populous, poorer northern states and India’s prosperous southern states in India’s south, according to people familiar with the developments. . Birth rates are below replacement levels.

Former election commissioner SY Kuraishi said that to carry out the delimitation exercise, the Government of India should set up a delimitation commission by passing a delimitation bill in Parliament after the completion of the census. This delimitation commission will also be able to decide whether to increase the number of Lok Sabha constituencies in the country.

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“The delimitation commission is headed by a Supreme Court judge and consists of two members: the chief election commissioner or one of the two election commissioners and the state election commissioner of the state or UT in which the delimitation exercise is to be carried out. Since this is intended to be a nationwide exercise, state election commissioners from each state and Union territory will be part of the committee,” Qureshi said.

This means that if this committee is moved from, say, Punjab to Haryana, the Punjab state election commissioner will be replaced by someone from Haryana.

The exercise of delimitation in India was carried out four times – 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002. In 1976, the Quraysh announced that the exercise of delimitation was suspended until the 2001 census, so that proportional political representation of states in good standing within the family would be ensured. Planning schemes were not affected in the Lok Sabha.

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In 2002, during the Vajpayee government, the delimitation exercise was resumed but he said it was decided that only the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies within a state or Union territory could be redrawn based on population. Neither the state boundaries nor the absolute number of constituencies within the state or UT can be changed for the next 25 years. The aim was to ensure that the seats allocated to each state were not changed, thereby providing no benefit to states with high birth rates.

This 2002 delimitation commission, chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Kuldip Singh, lasted till May 2008 and its orders came into force in February 2008 for most states and UTs. The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was excluded from this scheme.

However, the restriction to four northeastern states (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur) was postponed by presidential orders issued in February 2008 due to security risks.

The Kuldip Singh delimitation committee discussed the issue of Lok Sabha constituencies with varying numbers of voters. For example, Qurashi explained that during the 2004 general elections (when the commission’s orders did not come into effect) there were around 3.3 million voters in the Outer Delhi constituency, while Chandni Chowk had around 330,000 voters.

“Personally, I believe that the distribution of seats between states, which has been frozen for the last 50 years, cannot be touched because this will lead to mass protests as in the past. “Southern states are already wary of losing their representation in the Lok Sabha to effectively control their population,” Qureshi said. “Two chief ministers have postponed the exercise. The logic remains the same. So, it will be interesting how this is rectified,” he said.

Writing in HT in 2019, political scientists Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hinston calculated that in 2026: uttar pradeshWhile the number of Lok Sabha delegation may increase from 80 to 143, Kerala’s number will remain unchanged at 20 and Tamil Nadu’s number will increase from 39 to 49. In this scenario, the overall strength of the Lok Sabha will increase to 848. Southern leaders such as Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin have expressed concern over falling birth rates in their states.

The basis for both interpretations is data showing that the fertility rates of the southern states have already fallen below replacement level (which keeps the population stable), indicating a declining (and aging) population. The fertility rate in Tamil Nadu is 1.76 and in Andhra Pradesh it is 1.68. This is above the replacement level of 2.1 in states like Uttar Pradesh at 2.35.

Qureshi said the restriction could have an impact on how Lok Sabha seats reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes are distributed and selected.