No delimitation till 2026 in Telangana: Central Govt

Hyderabad: The Central government’s double standards when it comes to Telangana came to the fore again with its decision not to consider the State government’s repeated appeals to increase the number of Assembly seats in the State.

The State government has been appealing to the union government to take up delimitation exercise in Telangana along with Andhra Pradesh, but the Centre refused to take up the issue. On Wednesday, union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai reiterated the Centre’s stand on not taking up the delimitation exercise in Rajya Sabha.

Replying to a question by GVL Narasimha Rao on increasing the number of Assembly seats in both the Telugu States, the union Minister said section 26(1) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 inter-alia States that subject to the provisions contained in Article 170 of the Constitution and without prejudice to section 15 of this Act, the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the successor States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana shall be increased from 175 and 119 to 225 and 153 respectively.

As per Article 170(3) of the Constitution, the total number of seats in the two State Assemblies shall not be readjusted till after the first Census is published post-2026, he said. Therefore, unless and until Article 170 of the Constitution is amended in line with Section 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the number of seats cannot be increased, he informed.

This exposes the double standards of the Central government towards Telangana. The State government has been demanding the Centre take up delimitation exercise in the two Telugu States just as it was done in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.

To this effect, the Chief Ministers of both the Telugu States had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the Assembly seats, but the latter maintains that there was no provision to revise the seats till 2026, citing amendments in the Constitution. However, the Central government plans to increase the number of Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir. The Centre constituted a Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission and in May this year, it recommended increasing the number of Assembly seats from 83 to 90.