North will make us secondary citizens, Revanth Reddy on delimitation

Objects to the exercise based on population; says South India will lose political voice

Hyderabad: Alleging that South India would lose political voice if the NDA government at the Centre carried out delimitation on population basis, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Saturday said political parties and leaders of south must oppose any such move.

Addressing the meeting on the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies convened by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin in Chennai, Reddy said, “North will make us secondary citizens” if the delimitation exercise is implemented on a population basis.

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“… we will not accept delimitation based on population because then States like UP, Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, will dominate rest of the country. We cannot accept it any cost,” he said.

BJP is implementing a policy of “demographic penalty”, he alleged.

Though Telangana and other states respect the country’s unity, delimitation based on population cannot be accepted as it will “politically limit us”, he said.

He favoured not increasing Lok Sabha seats but carrying out delimitation within states.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi implemented delimitation without increasing seats because it would have created an imbalance of political power between states, he said.

The NDA government led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 2001, also executed delimitation in states without increasing seats and PM Narendra Modi must also do the same, he said.

The Telangana CM asserted that the Pro Rata formula would also not be acceptable to undertake delimitation.

“Pro rata formula will also hurt us. The problem of pro rata is that it changes the power gap. The central government is decided by a majority of one seat. We have a history of a Central government falling because of just one vote. So pro-rata formula will also hurt us politically,” he said.

He suggested several measures for delimitation, including not increasing Lok Sabha seats for another 25 years, carrying out delimitation taking state as a unit, changing boundaries of LS seats inside the state based on the latest census, increasing SC, ST seats in states and providing 33 per cent women reservations in every state.

He claimed that it is time for Centre to end the “discrimination policy” against South and Punjab and to repay and reward these states for their “contribution in nation building for the last 50 years”.

He observed that the South at present has 130 seats out of 543 seats which means a political proportion of 24 percent.

Political demand of the south is to increase this to 33 per cent of Lok Sabha seats after delimitation, he said.

He requested all southern states and Punjab to leave their differences and unitedly fight for this cause.

Highlighting that his government would soon pass a resolution in Telangana Assembly on the delimitation issue, Reddy urged those who attended the meeting to do the same in their state assemblies.

He proposed holding the next meeting of southern states and Punjab in Hyderabad.

“We will discuss how to take the fight forward. I will organize a public meeting of all leaders. Please join us there to continue this fight,” he said.

The Telangana Chief Minister claimed that the southern states contribute more to the national exchequer but get lesser allocations.

For one rupee tax paid by Tamil Nadu, it gets back 26 paisa, while Telangana receives Rs 42 paisa for on rupee of tax paid, he maintained.

“But when Bihar pays Rs 1 tax, it gets Rs. 6.06, Uttar Pradesh Rs 2.03. Madhya Pradesh gets Rs. 1.73,” he said.

Revanth Reddy and state Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud attended the meeting on delimitation convened by TN CM M K Stalin, while BRS Working President K T Rama Rao participated in the conclave on behalf of his party.