Delimitation
Delimitation is the process of redrawing boundaries of Lok Sabha and State Assembly constituencies based on a recent Census to ensure that each seat has an almost equal number of voters.
While the current boundaries were drawn on the basis of the 2001 Census.
The number of Lok Sabha and State Assembly seats remained frozen on the basis of the 1971 Census.
In 2002, the Constitution was amended to place a freeze on the exercise until the first Census conducted after the year 2026.
This was due to imbalances in population growth between the northern and southern States.
Concerns
The regional variations in population count are definitely showing a demographic divergence.
Even today we are violating the ‘one person, one vote, one value’ principle.
Parliament has this leeway to say that nowhere can seats come down.
Even if the number of seats increase overall, the ratio between parliamentary representation of the northern States and southern States might widen.
So, Parliament must evolve a certain normative proportionality based on population, from which a deviation can always be considered.
If we think of a solution to this particular problem, we cannot be looking at count alone.
There is judgment to be applied as to what count of proportionality should be maintained.
There should definitely be a minimum of a normative of the count also.
When it comes to representation, it is not the count, but the characteristic of representation which is more important.
There are numbers that are larger and numbers that are smaller.
A standard proportionality norm has to be negotiated in such a manner that we do not miss out on the marginal voices when it comes to representation, in terms of allocation of seats.
Representation is not merely by per capita representation, it involves a greater accommodation of diverse characteristics.
And given India’s diversity and the unusual concentrations of certain groups in the population, this is important to take note of.
There are two to three very distinct flows of migration happening: from the east to the south; and from the north to the west.
In political terms, migrants’ agency is going to play a very significant role in outcomes.
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