Have past delimitations led to gerrymandering?

Parliament reconvened on Thursday to debate and (possibly) vote on three bills which will lead to the reallocation of Lok Sabha seats among states, delimitation of constituency boundaries, and reserving 33% of the new constituencies for women.

- Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha

The women’s reservation part of the legislative agenda is, historically speaking, the least controversial.While the bills still do not state this in writing, the government insists — and the Union home minister confirmed in the House —that the state-wise proportion of Lok Sabha seats will remain intact after the changes. This brings us to the third exercise: delimitation, which will involve redrawing constituency boundaries.

Ina first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, translating vote shares into seat shares - the latter determines winning or losing power - is always difficult to predict. A key driver here is the nature of the contest. Fragmented contests can generate a higher share of seats even with lower vote shares than bipolar ones. However, redrawing constituency boundaries can also make a large difference.

This is especially true when political loyalties are divided along caste and religious lines, as is often the case in most parts of India. Theoretically, there also exists a possibility that a redrawing of constituencies which can confine opposition’s likely supporters (a particular caste or religion) into fewer constituencies can help a ruling party.

The perverse incentives around redrawing constituency boundaries are not unique to India. This feature and debate exist in many democracies and there is a term for it: gerrymandering.