Apr 16, 2025 14:14 IST
First published on: Apr 16, 2025 at 14:14 IST
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Supporters of delimitation commonly invoke the argument that the current system is disproportionate and violates “one person, one vote” and only delimitation would restore this core democratic principle. In opposition to delimitation, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has rallied around CMs from different states set to lose out from this exercise. They oppose a further shift of power towards the Hindi Belt (as expected to be a consequence of delimitation) which already dominates Indian politics, and in their opposition, rely on the reason why delimitation was originally paused: States that have exercised population control should not be punished by diminishing their political influence.
The population control argument is a poor one. It invokes the spirit of a dark time in Indian history when government servants, incentivised to “control” the population, resorted to drastic and coercive measures. Besides this illiberal character, the argument also has undemocratic undertones. Even assuming that southern states have been governed well, why should an individual citizen of a northern state lose out on political influence because of the failure of past governments? Why should the vote of someone born in Bihar in 2000 matter less because the state governments performed poorly in the 1980s and 1990s? This suggestion is patently undemocratic
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The key argument against delimitation does not rest on population control but on properly understanding “one person, one vote”. Even today, every citizen has only one vote. The idea is that each person’s vote should have roughly an equal chance of influencing the electoral outcome. If one constituency consisted of 10 voters and another of 10 lakh voters, then the voters in the first constituency would have greater weight. Supporters of delimitation say that “one person, one vote” justifies delimitation based on population size. But this conclusion is false.
Indian states differ dramatically in their age structure. In Bihar, half of the population is 22 years or younger, while in Kerala, half of the population is 35 years or younger. A much larger share of Bihar’s population is younger than 18 and, therefore, ineligible to vote. If we distributed seats according to the overall population size, as the Constitution currently envisions, then votes in Bihar would count for more than votes in Kerala.
South Indian states have older populations. If we used the population eligible to vote rather than the entire population, then the shifts towards North Indian states would be less significant. Further, South Indian states tend to have higher voter turnout compared to the North. In the last Lok Sabha election, constituencies in Uttar Pradesh polled on average around 11 lakh votes. Constituencies in Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, have recorded an average of 11.2 lakh votes. In terms of the actual votes polled, there was hardly any disproportionality at all. If anything, votes in Uttar Pradesh had slightly more weight than votes in Tamil Nadu.
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Taking seats away from Tamil Nadu and adding them to Uttar Pradesh – as the census-delimitation approach implies – would make this disproportionality much worse and take us further away from “one person, one vote”. If the apportionment of seats to states was done on past polling data as a proxy for future turnouts, then delimitation would lead to rather insignificant changes in the composition of the Lok Sabha.
Additionally, “one person, one vote” is incompatible with the first-past-the-post system. The 2014 election serves as a stark reminder. The BJP received less than a third of the votes but won more than half the seats in the Lok Sabha. Votes for the BJP had a higher chance of making a difference than votes for other parties. This is a general feature of a first-past-the-post system. Voters favouring smaller parties which have low chances of winning have little influence. If “one person, one vote” means that each voter should have equal influence, then this would mean abandoning first-past-the-post for a proportional representation system. Yet, delimitation does the opposite. It risks increasing the disproportionality of Indian elections by favouring parties like the BJP which are strong in North India. This is another way in which delimitation would betray the “one person, one vote” principle.
The debate on delimitation is linked to the federal nature of India’s union. It is no coincidence that the opposition to delimitation is strongest in Tamil Nadu, a state which has long resisted centralising tendencies. If we really believe in “one person, one vote”, then we should resist dividing seats on the basis of a census.
Bastian Steuwer is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Ashoka University. Views are personal
