New Delhi, April 15
In sharp and focused criticism of the government’s proposed delimitation on the basis of the 2011 census, which was circulated yesterday (Tuesday), former Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari has called it “motivated gerrymandering” and says the “preponderance of possibility” is that it would threaten India’s political integrity. He says the proposed seat changes in the Lok Sabha are designed to ensure that the BJP’s political hold over the Hindi heartland brings it as close as possible to retaining power for the foreseeable future.
Tewari has done a back of the envelope calculation which shows that if the government’s amendments are passed the number of seats UP has in the Lok Sabha will increase from 80 to around 140 whilst, in comparison, the number of seats Kerala has will only increase from 20 to around 23/24. This means that the present 60 seat difference in the size of their respective representation in the Lok Sabha will jump to somewhere around 123-125.
Separately, The Hindu has estimated that the present 38.1% share of Lok Sabha seats held by the Hindi heartland states will increase to 43.1% whilst the share of southern states in the Lok Sabha will diminish from 24.3% to 20.7%. “I will stop there. There’s a lot in this comprehensive interview that will help you understand the sort of concerns the government’s proposed delimitation has raised,” said Tewari.
Tewari also argued that with 850 MPs the Lok Sabha is likely to become unwieldy, unruly and dysfunctional. He said as it is it struggles to function effectively with 543 numbers. “That battle will have been effectively lost if membership is increased to 850”, Tewari stated.
Tewari also said that the traditional and historically established process of carrying out delimitation has been deliberately ignored by the government and that is another of his concerns.
