Delimitation as Design: Critics See Politics Beneath Policy

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday stood up in Parliament to speak, Hafiz Ahmad, a sixty-two-year-old activist from Assam, was least bothered about what the PM had to say. Modi assured the country that no discrimination would take place against any region during the implementation of the delimitation bill, which proposes the redrawing of parliamentary and constituency boundaries.

"I give my guarantee... no injustice will be done to any state, from east to west, north to south." The guarantee followed repeated agitations by southern states, which fear that redrawing constituency boundaries will translate into losing parliamentary seats (and heft at the Centre) to northern, Hindi-speaking states—like Uttar Pradesh—that are seen as BJP strongholds.

Ahmad said that, going by the Assam example, Modi’s claims are “hollow.” He alleged that the BJP government in Assam implemented delimitation to fracture the voting pockets of opposition parties. Delimitation tried to limit the political relevance of Muslims in Assam, he added.

“Before the delimitation, Muslim voters were in the majority in 32 seats, but after delimitation, the number of Muslim-majority seats came down to 21. This is the actual purpose of delimitation: breaking the political influence of the opposition and ensuring that the BJP vote bank gets consolidated geographically,” he said.

Ahmad is not alone in criticizing the BJP’s strategy of pushing delimitation through women’s reservation.

A range of experts and political activists rejected PM Modi’s statement, saying that the bill has no provisions to ensure that no discrimination occurs. In fact, they said, there is no provision in the delimitation bill that even allows for a proportionate increase for each state.

Yogendra Yadav, a political activist, said the government has been claiming that the delimitation it proposes will maintain the current ratio or proportion of representation for each state. But this is not what the bill says. “It's completely against what the government has been promising... So this is cheating… show me the provision in the bills that mandates or even allows a proportionate increase for each state,” he said.

“The Constitution Amendment Bill (changes to Articles 55, 81, 82 et al.) does away with the existing freeze based on the 1971 Census. The Delimitation Bill (Clauses 8 and 9) mandates the opposite: seats are to be allotted as per the latest census (i.e., 2011). So, the conclusion is obvious: fresh allocation to be done by the Delimitation Commission will have to follow the population share of 2011,” he added.

Yadav said that women’s reservation could be implemented through a simple amendment. “Instead, it is being tied to the census and delimitation. The real game is not reservation for women, but political reservation for the BJP,” he added.

Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress MP from Assam, said that the proposal put forward by Congress and major opposition parties is simple: (1) implement women’s reservation unconditionally, without waiting for an updated national census or seat delimitation; (2) expedite the national census and ensure accurate representation of major and minor communities, especially OBCs, SCs, and STs; and (3) build a national consensus on delimitation so that the nation’s integrity and federal character are strengthened.

“The BJP should stop being over-smart and mixing up all three major issues. Stop trying to bulldoze an unfair delimitation and delay the caste census in the garb of women’s reservation,” he added.

Yamini Aiyar, a visiting senior fellow at the Saxena Center and Watson Institute at Brown University, said, “A responsible federal system responds to challenges like delimitation with careful deliberation, dialogue, and transparency. The last few days suggest the opposite. India's constitutional framers envisaged Indian federalism as an act of ‘co-operation’ between the Centre and the states. What is unfolding over delimitation is the most egregious and indeed dangerous form of ‘un-cooperative’ federalism.”

Responding to the delimitation debate, Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program, referred to a piece he co-authored with Jamie Hintson at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled India’s Emerging Crisis of Representation.

"If federalism is the glue that has kept the world’s largest democracy together, there are growing signs that this adhesive is becoming unstuck,” they wrote.

They devised estimates of the extent of malapportionment based on 2011 Census numbers as well as population projections for 2026. These updated numbers indicate sizable shifts in political power.

“Four north Indian states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh) would collectively gain 22 seats, while four southern states (Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu) would lose 17 seats. Based on our population projections, these trends will only intensify as time goes on. In 2026, for instance, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh alone stand to gain 21 seats, while Kerala and Tamil Nadu would forfeit as many as 16,” they wrote.

Various groups opposing the delimitation bills have shared data sheets projecting seat losses for southern states and gains for northern states, which are BJP strongholds.

According to estimates based on the 2011 Census, southern states like Tamil Nadu would lose 11 seats, Kerala 8 seats, and Andhra Pradesh 5 seats, whereas northern states like Uttar Pradesh would gain 13 seats, Bihar 9 seats, and Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi would gain 8, 5, and 5 seats, respectively.