'Degressive proportionality', 'unscientific exercise', 'punishment to TN' | Delimitation Bill

As the Centre has proposed a major overall of the composition of the Lok Sabha through a constitution amendment Bill (131st), which seeks to increase the strength of the Lower House from the current 543 to 850, in the context of achieving one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, the Opposition has cried foul alleging that it is an effort to promote the northern states’ representation at the expense of the southern states. Politically, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a stronger voting base in the north, compared to the south.

Also read: Stalin announces black-flag protest in TN against Centre over delimitation proposal

As the Bill is set to be taken up in the special session of Parliament starting Thursday (April 16), Opposition leaders met at the official residence of Congress president and the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, to formulate a united strategy to oppose the Constitution Amendment and Delimitation Bills. Representatives of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC), which on various occasions took on the Congress, the leader of the Opposition INDIA bloc, were also seen.

Meanwhile, we take a look at what various leaders said on the Centre's move. First, the chief ministers of some of the south Indian states.

M K Stalin: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has come up with one of the fiercest criticisms of the delimitation proposal. In a video released on Tuesday (April 14), he said, the Centre’s plan to push through the delimitation exercise, at a time when Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are heading for elections, was an attack on democracy and the states’ rights.

Warning of serious protests in the state, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supremo asked whether the southern states were being made to pay the price for controlling their population growth. In an X post on Wednesday (April 15), he said, “Is punishment being meted out to Tamil Nadu and the southern states for the crime of striving for India's growth?”

Revanth Reddy: Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy raised serious concerns over the plan to raise the number of seats in the Lok Sabha. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said the move will “affect the future of our democracy and country”. While opining in favour of the Women’s Reservation Bill, saying it should be implemented immediately with the current 543 seats in the Lower House, he strongly criticised the proposal to increase the number of seats from 543 to 850, based on population and on a pro-rata basis.

Claiming that the issues of women's reservation, national delimitation and increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats are not interconnected, Reddy said the southern states would see a significant erosion of their voice in Parliament despite making substantial contributions to the national economy.

Also read: Women’s reservation a smokescreen for delimitation, warns activist Anjali Bhardwaj

Siddaramaiah: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, who alleged in the past that the proposed delimitation exercise was in favour of the northern states, wrote in a piece in The Hindu on Wednesday that the issues of women’s reservation and delimitation of the Lok Sabha and assembly seats are distinct ones. He said the advancement of women’s reservation is a welcome step, but “any attempt to link it with an unscientific and unilateral exercise of redrawing representation raises serious concerns”. According to the Congress leader, women’s reservation can be carried out within the current delimitation, and no fresh exercise is required.

Pinarayi Vijayan: The Kerala chief minister also expressed a stern reaction to the Centre's idea, saying its "hurried attempt to carry out delimitation under the guise of an administrative reform cannot be seen as a routine exercise". According to him, there is a serious and growing concern that this is, in fact, an attempt to unsettle the country's very federal structure. "There is widespread suspicion that this move is aimed at converting the political dominance of North Indian states—on the basis of population—into a greater share of Lok Sabha seats, thereby securing power for the long term. The direct impact of this will be felt by states like Kerala. States that have acted responsibly by advancing in population control, education, healthcare, and women’s empowerment are effectively being penalised," he said, adding, "Using issues of social justice, such as women’s reservation, as a cover for such measures serves narrow political interests".

Mamata Banerjee: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who is the middle of a fierce electoral battle with the BJP, said at a rally in Howrah district of her poll-bound state on Tuesday that the NDA had introduced the delimitation bill with a sinister plan to divide Bengal and India. According to her, the saffron party is trying the delimitation exercise despite having no full majority at the Centre and that they require the support of two parties to remain in power.

Jairam Ramesh: Congress MP from Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the delimitation proposal, saying in a post on X that the latter has an “unmatched ability” to mislead and accused him of being a “habitual liar who cannot speak the truth”.

“He (Modi) has engaged in deliberate deceit with the nation over the question of delimitation. The Bills that his Government has circulated for the special session of Parliament contradict all the so-called assurances that he has been giving. The southern states will lose their strength in the Lok Sabha, and so will smaller states in northwest India and states in the east. What happened to the uniform proportionate increase of strength in the Lok Sabha for all states, which was promised by the PM and some of his colleagues? That has not happened.

Also read: Why delimitation Bills appear more ominous than originally thought

“The PM’s assurances cannot be trusted. He is unable to rise beyond his crude power-grabbing impulses and be a statesman - even on an issue as sensitive as delimitation,” Ramesh, the Congress’s general secretary in-charge communications, said.

KC Venugopal: Senior Congress leader and All India Congress Committee General Secretary KC Venugopal said on X, “The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill is extremely ill-timed and poses serious questions that the Modi government must answer. Under the garb of bringing forward women’s reservations, the BJP is looking to bulldoze a deeply flawed, unconstitutional and anti-federal delimitation exercise. What was the tearing hurry to introduce this with such little notice? When 2 major states are going into election, holding a special session for this shows the true devious intentions of this fascist regime.”

Bhagwant Mann: Bhagwant Mann, chief minister of Punjab and an Aam Aadmi Party leader, spoke out against the delimitation proposal in March when he accused the BJP of playing dirty tricks and deliberately aiming to decrease the number of Lok Sabha seats in those states where it cannot win and increase where it is confident of winning. In March 2025, Mann was among those leaders who attended the meeting on ‘fair delimitation’ hosted by his Tamil Nadu counterpart Stalin in Chennai.

Akhilesh Yadav: Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the supremo of the Samajwadi Party, took another angle to criticise the BJP on the idea of women’s reservation. On Wednesday, he said his party supports women’s reservation but alleged that the saffron party was pushing it with a “hidden agenda” that sidelines backwards-class women and avoids a caste-based census.

Also read: Women’s quota linked to massive Parliament expansion, warns Radha Kumar

“We support women's reservation but oppose the BJP's deceitful move, which is being carried out as part of a conspiracy,” he said in a post on X. Akhilesh alleged that the ruling party and its allies were silent on providing adequate representation to women from Other Backward Classes, who constitute a significant part of the population.

John Brittas: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Kerala, John Brittas, said in a hard-hitting post on X that the South has already become a colony of the North and the new bill will make it official. “The so-called decolonisation that’s being advocated ends up in real colonisation.. Country’s unity can be preserved by upholding three prerequisites- democracy, secularism and federalism. Every step of Modi Government runs contrary to this principle,” he said.

Shashi Tharoor: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday came up with the idea of “degressive proportionality”, which is seen in the European Union, in the Lok Sabha to balance population with federal equity. He urged PM Modi to hold talks with all parties and states before going for a hurried delimitation process that leaves “core underlying issues unaddressed”. According to the Thiruvananthapuram MP, it would be dangerous for Indian federalism if smaller states perceived that their prosperity and human development were being punished with “relative disenfranchisement”.

Also read: Is Revanth’s delimitation formula for fair South representation reasonable?

Sonia Gandhi: Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi wrote a piece on The Hindu on Monday saying it is delimitation and not women's reservation, which is the actual issue. "The Prime Minister is making appeals to Opposition parties to support Bills that the government wants to bulldoze in a special session of Parliament when the election campaign in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will be at its peak. There can be only one reason for the extraordinary hurry, which is to derive political advantage and place the Opposition on the defensive," she wrote.