What is delimitation?

For Lok Sabha and State assembly elections to take place in a fair manner, it should be ensured that each vote carries equal weight. This means that each member of the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies should represent equal number of people.

The challenge arises because the population keeps changing constantly. While it is creeping higher in the country, the change is not uniform across regions. It is growing in some regions, stagnating in others and declining in some.

Therefore, we need the delimitation exercise periodically so that the changes in the population do not distort the value of each vote.

For example, if one Lok Sabha constituency has 8 lakh voters, and another has 21 lakh, then the value of one vote in the constituency with 21 lakh voters will be lower.

This exercise redraws the boundaries of Lok Sabha and State assembly constituencies so that the voters are evenly distributed across these constituencies.

According to Justice Kuldip Singh, former chairman of delimitation commission, “delimitation and elections are the two basic pillars of a parliamentary democracy.”

When was the last delimitation exercise done?

Immediately after independence, delimitation was done every ten years. The first Delimitation Commission was constituted in 1952, the second in 1962 and the third in the year 1973. The third exercise – based on 1971 census – was completed in 1975. There was a long gap thereafter and after 30 years, the fourth commission was set up in 2002, which used data from the 2001 census.

Another such exercise was to have been executed following the Census of 2021 but the pandemic having delayed it, delimitation efforts are to be taken up after the Census of 2026.

Is delimitation mandatory?

Article 81 of the Constitution says “there shall be allotted to each State a number of seats in the House of the People in such manner that the ratio between that number and the population of the State is, so far as practicable, the same for all States and that each State shall be divided into territorial constituencies in such manner that the ratio between the population of each constituency and the number of seats allotted to it is, so far as practicable, the same throughout the State…. the expression ‘population’ means the population as ascertained in the last preceding census of which the relevant figures have been published.”

The Constitution requires redrawing of constituency borders to make sure that the population across the country is fairly represented.

Why are southern States opposing Census data as the basis for delimitation?

The population in the South has grown slower than in the North, as the former have implemented population control programmes better than their northern counterparts over the decades.

Data from The Hindu shows that in the 4 decades to 2011, the proportion of population of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh rose from 44 per cent to 48.2 per cent, while that of the five southern States – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana – slid from 24.9 per cent to 21.1 per cent. 

So, the States in the South are apprehensive that if the latest population data were used to determine constituency boundaries, then they’d have fewer representatives in Parliament than the northern States. Arithmetically, this would seem like the right thing to do as per the Constitutional requirement, but it would also look like punitive action on southern States for having done a good job with population control.

Recently, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin’s expressed anxiety over the consequences of delimitation. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the South wouldn’t lose even one seat in Parliament. But, even if the southern seat count was retained while those in the north were raised, that would still mean an unfair deal to the South, politicians contend.

Has differential population growths affected representation?

A paper by Pankaj Kumar Patel and T. V. Sekher published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies elucidates an example from the 2024 general elections.

“The most populous constituency, Malkajgiri in Telangana, had a staggering 3.7 million registered electors, significantly surpassing the smallest constituency, Lakshadweep, which has a mere 57,000 electors. Examples of major States too shows the divide; the electoral weight of the Idukki constituency in Kerala, with only 1.2 million electors, is more than twice that of the Bangalore North constituency in Karnataka, which has 3.2 million registered electors.” 

Is there an economic angle to delimitation?

A change in the number of MPs would mean a change in the distribution of funds for each constituency. What comes from the Centre for this purpose would not be significant considering the whole of India’s Budget.

But the sharing of taxes with States by the Centre has already received a setback, from the viewpoint of the South with the use of recent population trends. Till 2015, the Finance Commission panels set up by the Centre were to take only population figures as per the Census of 1971 and determine distribution accordingly.

The 15th Finance Commission was allowed to take the 2011 Census data for calculation.

How have other countries solved similar problems?

R Srinivasan, Member, State Planning Commission, Tamil Nadu, takes the example of Canada, saying, “they have several types of correction processes while deciding the number of constituencies for each province and ultimately ensure the proportions of representation for smaller provinces do not decline.”

“If they have an imbalance on the total number of seats in the Parliament, they would even transfer 1-2 seats from a larger province in terms of population to the smaller province. So the proportion would actually increase for the smaller provinces. This is very marginal, though. But, one cannot end up with all constituencies having more or less the same population,” he asserts.

He also points out other factors that should help decide the size of a constituency – number of people who are old enough to vote, voter turnout trends in that constituency, as also the migrants who may choose one constituency to live in but wish for their vote to count in another constituency.

“There is no thumb rule to tell us that all constituencies should be equal in terms of population. A trade-off is needed here.”

Hasn’t rural-to-urban migration made delimitation for State Assemblies more important?

One point of view has it that delimitation for State Assembly elections may help the population more if the focus were on Parliamentary constituencies. But even there, challenges exist. In every constituency, there are always different groups of people with varying interests.

Srinivasan says: “To make a fair representation, every constituency must be able to arrive at a compromise between conflicting interests. In terms of interests, wide differences may not arise in urban areas because of the slightly more homogeneous population group. But in larger rural areas, conflicting interests may be possible, as also the number of such conflicts may be higher. 

Take, for example, the issue of water supply. It may be priced for connections to an individual household, whereas a community connection may not be charged. But, that itself may be the reason for the excess use of water. An elected representative will have to bring in a compromise between the 2 groups because if public amenities are not attended to in a community living, contagious diseases could break out, which could also affect individuals being charged for water.

If the number of interest groups are higher then it becomes very complex. Therefore, the constituency size should be smaller in such places. 

Is there an alternative to delimitation?

Population density and geography could be a proxy to help determine the constituency boundary. But other factors will have to kick in. To help arrive at the mid-point, Srinivasan says taking into account the average fertility rate for the country could help.

If we multiply the 1971 population by the fertility rate for each State that could help the conversation move forward.

For example, Tamil Nadu’s fertility rate is 1.67, “whereas it is still about 2.3 in some of the northern States”. If take an average of 2, then it would be higher than the actual for Tamil Nadu, so the proportion of seats that the State would get will also be higher and assuage any regional concerns.

“The average fertility applied to the population of the northern State would be lower than its actual, which is the population they ought to have reached by good family planning,” says Srinivasan.