Hyderabad, Apr 14 (PTI) Upping the ante against the pro rata model of delimitation, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday asked his southern counterparts to join forces and also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to convene an all-party to deliberate on the issue.
He proposed a “hybrid model” for increasing Lok Sabha seats, under which 50 per cent of the additional seats would be allocated on a pro rata basis and the remaining 50 per cent on Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and other performance criteria.
Reddy, who wrote letters to CMs M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu), N Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala) and N Rangasamy (Puducherry UT), told them that the southern states, despite their substantial contribution to the national economy, will witness a relative erosion of their voice in Parliament if the pro rata model is implemented.
While INDIA bloc constituents rule Karnataka, Telangana (both Congress) and Tamil Nadu (DMK), NDA is in the ruling saddle in Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry.
With the change in Lok Sabha seats, the southern states would be punished with political injustice over and above continued financial and policy discrimination, he alleged.
Reddy claimed that states with higher population growth in a northern-central belt will gain disproportionately which effectively translates into a scenario where progress is penalised and demographic expansion is rewarded.
“Given the magnitude of this issue, it is clear that a fragmented response will not suffice. There is a growing need for collective engagement among southern states, and indeed all like-minded states, to ensure that our concerns are articulated effectively at the national level. In this regard, let us all join to launch a coordinated effort with unity to address this issue,” he said.
The “coordinated effort” should include engagement among CMs of southern and similarly placed performing and smaller states and taking the fight to Parliament, he said.
In his letter to Modi, Reddy urged the Prime Minister to convene an all-party meeting to deliberate on proposed delimitation, alleging that an increase in Lok Sabha seats based on pro rata, without considering economic contribution, would lead to a distortion in the country’s federal balance.
The pro rata model will not be acceptable to people and governments of southern India and any attempt to proceed without addressing their concerns will inevitably lead to widespread opposition and resistance, as it touches upon the fundamental principle of fair representation, he said.
Reddy told his southern counterparts that women’s reservations, national delimitation and increase in seats for Lok Sabha are three different issues, which are being deliberately mixed to cause confusion in public mind, he alleged.
The southern states are in support of the Women’s Reservation Bill (without linking it to increase of seats) or delimitations before without changing number of seats and only to change boundaries of constituencies within states, he said.
The real contentious issue is the proposal to increase Lok Sabha seats to 850, and this addition to the lower house of Parliament would be done using pro rata method (815 seats), plus an additional 35 seats for Union Territories.
“We must totally oppose the increase in seats using pro rata method,” he said.
Under a pro rata framework, while all states may see an increase in absolute number of seats, relative gap between states will widen significantly, he said.
For instance, Tamil Nadu along with Puducherry currently has 40 Lok Sabha seats, while Uttar Pradesh has 80 seats, a gap of 40 seats.
Under “proposed model” of the NDA government at the Centre, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry together may increase from 40 to around 60 seats, whereas Uttar Pradesh may rise to around 120 seats.
This expands the political gap from 40 to 60 seats, thereby “structurally widening” the imbalance in representation, he said.
Observing that southern states have invested heavily in population stabilisation, public health and economic development, thereby contributing significantly to India’s growth story, he claimed that under a population or pro rata model, these achievements are rendered inconsequenial in determining political representation.
On financial devolutions, the southern states were facing “severe financial injustice, bias and discrimination”, he alleged.
“While Bihar receives Rs 6.69 for every rupee it contributes, Tamil Nadu receives only about 26 paise for the same tax contribution. This reflects the long-standing north-south divide,” he said in his letter to Stalin.
Observing that the country’s strength lies in its unity in diversity, he said in the letter to Modi it was essential that decisions of major consequence reinforce the unity, rather than inadvertently strain it.
Earlier, addressing a gathering after paying tributes to B R Ambedkar on the occasion of his birth anniversary, Reddy alleged that women, SCs and STs in southern states would face “injustice” if there is no adequate increase in the number of seats.
He said he had raised the delimitation issue as PM Modi was allegedly seeking to increase the number of seats in Uttar Pradesh or Gujarat at the cost of southern states.
Union Minister G Kishan Reddy had on Monday said a delimitation committee headed by a Supreme Court judge, along with state-level committees, would be appointed, and public opinion elicited. PTI SJR SJR SA
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