Bengaluru: A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured the Southern States of not losing a single Lok Sabha seat to the delimitation exercise, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said the statement cannot be trusted.
"We cannot trust Amit Shah's statement on delimitation. It is made with a mala fide intention to create confusion among the Southern States. The undue enthusiasm of the Centre in carrying out delimitation exercise seems to have an agenda of punishing the Southern States which have not been supporting BJP," Siddaramaiah said in a press release.
Addressing party workers in Coimbatore on Wednesday Shah said not a single Lok Sabha seat in the Southern States is going to be reduced on a pro-rata basis. He was reacting to Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin's apprehensions that his state would lose eight Lok Sabha seats if delimitation is done based on population changes recorded in the census.
Going by the loud statement (of Shah), either he does not possess complete information about delimitation or he is trying to cause injustice to the Southern States. "If not, let him tell people if the delimitation will be carried out taking into account the latest population data or the existing Lok Sabha seats," Siddaramaiah urged.
In case the delimitation is done as per the latest population data, Siddaramaiah said, the Southern States, which effectively controlled the population growth, are bound to be at the receiving end. "Delimitation on the basis of population will either result in a reduction in the number of Lok Sabha seats in Southern States or a slight increase. But surely not on par with the Northern States. In both the scenarios, the Southern States stand to lose," he said.
Several studies have been carried out on the effects of delimitation. According to one of them, the number of LS seats in Karnataka will come down to 26 from 28 if the latest population data ( data from the 2021 or 2030 census) is taken into consideration. Similarly, LS seats in Andhra Pradesh will come down to 34 from 42, and that of Tamil Nadu from 39 to 31. On the other hand, the number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh will go up from 80 to 91, 40 to 50 and 29 to 33 respectively.
"We cannot tolerate such injustice. The Centre should either carry out delimitation taking into account the 1971 census data or based on existing LS sabha seats. If not, Karnataka along with other Southern States will launch a fight against the Centre," he said.
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