Delimitation: how to align what is said and what is written
In April, the Centre moved the 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill and the Delimitation Bill, which in combination proposed the following:Increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to a maximum of 850 seats.Allot those seats among States based on the population figures of the “latest Census” (which happens to be that of 2011) and delimit individual constituencies within each State immediately. As per the existing provisions of the Constitution, a fresh allocation among States and delimitation can happen only after the Census of 2027.Reserve one-third of the Lok Sabha seats for women, which would otherwise happen along with the fresh delimitation after the 2027 Census.The Bills moved by the government did not align with the oral promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on the floor of Parliament and in interactions with representatives of political parties. The government has publicly maintained that its delimitation plans would not affect the existing proportion of individual States in the Lok Sabha, and that the proposed 50% increase in the size of the Lok Sabha would translate into a 50% increase in the number of seats in each State. Since that promise was in conflict with the text of the proposed amendments in April, no consensus could be reached for the passage of the Constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha. The Amendment Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha, and the Delimitation Bill was not put to vote.The question, therefore, as Parliament convenes for a new session, is how the text of the Constitution can incorporate the promise of maintaining the current proportional distribution of Lok Sabha seats.The existing proportion of seats for each State is a constitutional guarantee written into Articles 81 and 82 of the Constitution. That guarantee has a sunset clause — the existing arrangement comes to an automatic end once the data of the first Census after 2026 is published.In Articles 81 and 82, there are references to three Censuses: the first Census after 2026; the Census of 1971; and the Census of 2001. The next delimitation is tied to the first Census after 2026; the existing proportion of Lok Sabha seats among States is tied to the 1971 Census; and the population of individual constituencies within the States is tied to the 2001 Census. The April amendments and the Delimitation Bill, in combination, proposed to remove all these separate references and tie the allotment of seats to the States and the delimitation of constituencies to the “latest Census”.If the Centre wants to make good on its verbal assurance of maintaining the existing proportional share of each State in the Lok Sabha, it must extend the freeze that ends in 2026 into the future. The last two times, the freeze was imposed for 25 years each — in 1976 until 2001, and in 2001 until 2026. If the Centre plans to freeze the current arrangement for another 25 years, the references to the first Census after 2026 in Articles 81 and 82 can be amended to read “after 2051”. Or it can be any other date into the future, as the case may be.To ensure that each State gets a 50% increase in seats, the reference to the 1971 Census in Articles 81 and 82 would also need to be retained, unless the government has another formulation to achieve that objective. If the Centre wants to propose a fresh delimitation while retaining the existing proportion of seats and only redrawing constituency boundaries within each State, it can retain the references to the 1971 Census where they exist now in Articles 81 and 82 and amend the references to the 2001 Census to the 2011 Census. This way, the constitutional guarantee of the proportional strength o
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