Fraying of the federal pact

The quota debate has highlighted genuine anxieties about delimitation and threatened to widen a north-south fault line

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nalready bitter relationship between the government and the Opposition has deteriorated into outright hostility following the failure of the 131st Constitution amendment bill to garner the required two-thirds majority.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an address to the nation, attacked the INDIA bloc and likened its opposition to the bill as “foeticide” even as the Opposition called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s efforts a smokescreen to gerrymander constituencies to its advantage. Beyond the politics, as this newspaper has noted, the episode highlighted genuine anxieties about delimitation, the fraying federal compact and the possible angst in southern states once the freeze on the expansion, and redrawing of constituencies expires in 2026.