New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor mounted a scathing attack on the government on Friday, accusing it of pushing delimitation under the garb of the Women’s Reservation Bill for the political benefit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Member of Parliament said that women’s reservation is wrapped in barbed wires of delimitation, going on to emphasise the process is not just redrawing maps but marks a shift in political power without proper discourse.
“Delimitation is not a mere bureaucratic rearranging of maps. It is a profound shift in political power that is intended. Linking women’s reservation to it effectively holds the aspirations of Indian women hostage to one of the most contentious political exercises in our history,” Tharoor said in the Lok Sabha.
The Congress MP referred to delimitation as “political demonetisation”, warning that the exercise could alter the balance between northern and southern states, while calling it one of the complex administrative exercises in the country’s history and seeking a compulsive discussion.
“Delimitation has been proposed with such haste, the same haste which was shown at the time of demonetization which damaged the country; don’t do it.”
Tharoor asked why states like Uttar Pradesh which have not controlled population growth are gaining more political weight while states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu which have followed the prescribed demographic model are not.
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Southern discomfort
The former Union minister also asked why excellence in governance displayed by the southern states is being equated with growing political irrelevance.
“Delimitation requires deliberation. There are three major faultlines: the balance between small and big states. Then, the balance between states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have implemented the national goals of population goals. And, states in the north which have not. In delimitation, the states which have failed to control population will be rewarded with greater political weight,” he said in the Lok Sabha.
Tharoor said delimitation could upset the balance between states, and added that the South contribute more to the national exchequer than the North which is mere beneficiaries of the Centre’s schemes.
He questioned delimitation being based purely on population, saying it would further marginalise those states that contribute the “lion’s share” to keeping the Union afloat.
“We risk creating a tyranny of the demographic majority, where a handful of large poor states could theoretically determine the fate of the entire country, leaving smaller states and those with distinct linguistic and cultural identities and economic contributions feeling like bystanders in their own country.”
He also said that, Home Minister Amit Shah’s “50 per cent formula”—promising that no state will lose seats—remains a precarious political assurance, not a legislative certainty, while calling the proposed model of expanding the Lok Sabha to an 850-member House “unworkable”.
The Lok Sabha is discussing the passage of the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill which provides 33 percent reservation to women in Parliament and state Assemblies, and the delimitation bill which aims to increase and redraw Lok Sabha constituencies.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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