Addressing a press conference, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha president said the southern region benefited in terms of its share of Lok Sabha seats due to their rising population, while its growth was limited in Hindi-speaking states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
BJP ally and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha on Tuesday opened a new front in the contentious debate over delimitation, demanding that Lok Sabha seats be increased in proportion to population and rejecting the contention of southern states against the view as wrong.
Addressing a press conference, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha president said the southern region benefited in terms of its share of Lok Sabha seats due to their rising population, while its growth was limited in Hindi-speaking states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
He claimed, "The southern states now want to deny the same benefits to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It is like someone having eaten at a banquet first demanding that those in the queue should not be served the meal." Asserting that India's Constitution assigns the same electoral value to every vote, he said it is the right of citizens in the Hindi-speaking states to be allocated Lok Sabha seats according to their numbers.
He said, "I will urge the central government to not come under pressure from the southern states and carry out a delimitation exercise on the basis of population." He said the argument of states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala or Karnataka that increasing the seats of Lok Sabha in proportion to population will amount to punishing them for successfully implementing population control measures is one-sided and unreasonable.
From 1881 to 1951, Kushwaha said, the population in southern India almost doubled and its share in the country's population grew from 22 per cent to 26 per cent in the period. Their overall share was 25 per cent in 1971, the last time the delimitation was carried out, he added, asserting that his figures are based on official data.
He said a state like Bihar suffered the worst form of colonial oppression, and its share in the national population declined from 10.8 per cent in 1881 to eight per cent in 1951.
With Bihar not a separate region in 1881, Kushwaha might have arrived at his figure from extrapolation.
He questioned the claim of governments in southern states that their policy was behind the decline in population growth, saying it has more to do with the improvement in socio-economic indicators.
Bihar, a state he hails from, is now also improving in these indicators, and its consequences will be reflected in the declining population growth, he said.
Five southern states, especially the four ruled by the opposition INDIA bloc, have dialled up pressure on the BJP-led NDA government against the population-based delimitation exercise, which is due after 2026 once the census is carried out.
Parties like the DMK, which is in power in Tamil Nadu, had protested in Parliament during the Budget Session as well.
With the issue seen to be a potential flashpoint for regional conflict, the Indira Gandhi government had frozen the total number of Lok Sabha seats during the Emergency for 25 years. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government followed suit in 2001, putting off delimitation for another 25 years.
Home Minister Amit Shah has assured the southern states that his government will ensure that no injustice is meted out to them when the delimitation exercise begins.