Calls mount to redraw India's electoral boundaries to ensure fair representation

But population asymmetry makes redistribution of seats contentious

- Rohini Mohan

BENGALURU — A plan to redraw parliamentary and assembly constituencies to reflect changes in the population offers India the chance to make structural changes to its governance system to better serve its 1.4 billion people.

But how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government does it will determine how soon the nation reaches its goal of becoming a developed country, along with uplifting its poorest and youngest.

The so-called "delimitation" exercise that is expected to be done after 2026 has been championed by the Modi government, which says that it is imperative to rejig electoral boundaries to ensure that people across the country are equally represented in legislative bodies.

This will be achieved by changing the number of people represented by every MP and state legislator, in line with latest population figures. The process is expected to kick off once India conducts a fresh population census in 2025.

The last census was in 2011.

The Modi government wants Parliament to reflect the current population. But India's prosperity, demography and political priorities vary across its 28 states and union territories.

"The fundamental problem is that the gaps between the richest and poorest states are widening in India. We need delimitation and a federal bargain to avoid massive regional imbalances that hamper India's growth," said Mr Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, a think-tank in Bengaluru.

ARE MORE PROSPEROUS STATES PUNISHED FOR SLOWING POPULATION GROWTH?

India's acute regional population asymmetry has made the redistribution of seats through simple division by population a matter of contention between the more populous and poorer northern states and the less populous, richer southern states. The denser northern states, now ruled primarily by Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will end up cornering more parliamentary seats.