Opinion | Delimitation Drama: DMK Exploits, Congress Obfuscates
DMK cries foul on delimitation, exploiting anxieties despite BJP assurances, while Congress adds fuel to the fire with blatant hypocrisy. A cynical power play is unfolding, raising suspicions: is this about genuine concern for the South or just pre-election manoeuvring?
The Joint Action Committee (JAC) meeting, scheduled to be organised by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on 22 March to discuss the issue of delimitation of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, seems like a divided house of hypocrisy. Two things stand out markedly—the Congress party’s bizarre duplicitous stand and the DMK’s conspicuous timing in raising the issue of delimitation.
With invitations extended to seven Chief Ministers and 29 political parties, the core agenda of the JAC is to oppose delimitation based on population, arguing that it would deny the Southern states their rights and punish them for effectively controlling population growth. In the context of delimitation, nothing could contradict the JAC’s position more than Rahul Gandhi’s vehement advocacy of Jitni Abadi, Utna Haq—rights proportional to population.
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Slamming this refrain of Rahul Gandhi as discriminatory, PM Modi had forewarned in October 2023 that the Congress was cheating the Southern states and doing them a disservice, as it did not want more parliamentary seats to be allocated to them after delimitation.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge recently remarked that population-based delimitation amounts to social injustice for the people of the South. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party’s mutually conflicting stance is shocking and exposes their politics of opportunism. This JAC would be a befitting forum for the DMK and other parties to question this blatant contradiction within the Congress.
Rahul Gandhi proclaims Daro Mat—do not fear. The DMK should not hesitate to ask him to categorically clarify his stance on rights proportional to population in the context of delimitation.
During the Emergency in 1976, the Congress government, through the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, froze the number of Lok Sabha seats and deferred delimitation for 25 years until the 2001 Census, citing family planning policies. Subsequently, in 2002, the Vajpayee-led NDA government, of which the DMK was a part, passed the 84th Constitutional Amendment, further freezing the number of Lok Sabha seats and postponing delimitation until the first Census conducted after 2026.
With the Caste Census set to begin only after 2026, the DMK’s sudden attempt to stoke fears of delimitation—framing it within a contentious north-south narrative—appears politically motivated, particularly with elections due in Tamil Nadu next year.
With reference to population control and delimitation, senior DMK minister Duraimurugan’s denigrating remark about North Indians—“those people give birth to 10 children like pigs do"—was reprehensible. Such divisive narratives for political gain weaken cooperative federalism.
Immediately after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin began brandishing the paper sword of delimitation, claiming the denial of rights to Southern states, Home Minister Amit Shah unequivocally stated in the Lok Sabha that under the Modi-led government, not a single seat from any Southern state would be reduced after delimitation on a pro-rata basis. He reaffirmed that Prime Minister Modi would safeguard the interests of the Southern states, ensuring they benefit from an increase in seats accordingly.
The Central government addressing the genuine apprehensions of state governments aligns with the true spirit of cooperative federalism. However, rabble-rousing through false strawman arguments and fabricating fictitious north-south fault lines for political gain promotes divisive federalism.
C.R. Kesavan is a National Spokesperson of the BJP. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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