Revanth Reddy seeks all-party meet on delimitation, opposes population-based model

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy urged the Centre to hold an all-party meeting on delimitation, opposing a population-based approach. He proposed a hybrid model and warned southern States could lose political influence if the current method is followed.

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has urged the Centre to convene an all-party meeting on the proposed delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. He warned that a population-based exercise would be unfair to southern States.

Addressing a press conference in Hyderabad on Monday, he said such a move would widen the gap between northern and southern regions. He proposed a hybrid model instead and said under this model, half the seats could be increased on a pro-rata basis and the remaining based on GSDP.

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Revanth Reddy called for wider consultations with political parties, State legislatures and civil society groups. He suggested forming an expert committee and placing its report before both Houses of Parliament for discussion. He said southern States would lose influence in government formation if delimitation is done purely on population. He also criticised Union Ministers Bandi Sanjay Kumar and G Kishan Reddy, claiming Telangana’s reduced role would limit their relevance.

“If Telangana does not have any role to play in government formation, Bandi Sanjay and Kishan Reddy will never become Union Ministers again. Save for greeting people outside Modi’s office, they will not be useful for any other purpose,” Revanth Reddy said.

The Chief Minister said he would write to his counterparts in southern States and smaller States to build a common position on the issue.

On the Women’s Reservation Bill, he said the Congress supports reservations for women. He asked the Centre to implement it within the existing 543 Lok Sabha seats. At 33 per cent, women would get 181 seats.

He accused the BJP government of creating controversy by linking the bill to delimitation and charged that the saffron party lacked commitment towards women empowerment.