BENGALURU: Citing prior commitments, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah skips Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin convened a meeting in Chennai on March 22 to discuss the issues of delimitation of Lok Sabha/Assembly seats.Instead, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah communicated to his Tamil Nadu counterpart that the meeting will be attended by Deputy Chief Minister and president of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee D.K. Shivakumar. On March 7, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister wrote a letter to Siddaramaiah asking his participation in a meeting in Chennai to discuss certain issues of vital importance such as autonomy of States and delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats.Apart from writing a letter, Tamil Nadu Minister of Forests Dr K. Ponnumdui and Rajya Sabha member Mohamamd Abdullah Ismail met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar in Bengaluru on Wednesday and invited them for meeting in Chennai.In a press release by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on February 27 this year expressed fears “If (Union Government initiated) delimitation of Lok Sabha seats, is based on latest census, then, Karnataka’s seats may get reduced from 28 to 26 or stagnation in the Lok Sabha seats.”The Bharatiya Janata Party led Union Government has taken to the new weapon of Delimitation of Lok Sabha seats to reduce Lok Sabha seats in southern States and raise the Lok Sabha seats in some of the BJP dominated States. The aim to reduce Lok Sabha seats of southern States is to prevent Lok Sabha members of opposition parties from raising their concerns at the national-level.Over the past 5 decades, the Chief Minister pointed out to Amit Shah, southern States have effectively controlled population growth and progressed significantly in terms of development.Meanwhile, he said, the northern States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have failed to regulate their population growth and continue to lag behind in development. As a result, if Delimitation is based on the latest census, southern States may reduce in Lok Sabha or remain unchanged.Not only Karnataka, he said, even southern States of Andhra Pradesh would have Lok Sabha seats dropped from 42 to 34, Kerala from current 20 to 12 seats and Tamil Nadu from 39 to 31 seats and doubted the enthusiasm of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Delimitation of Lok Sabha seats while the “Real intent is to punish the people of southern States for resisting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from expanding its base.”In a statement, Siddaramaiah several studies have been conducted on the impact of Delimitation and as per these studies, if Delimitation is based solely on the latest census (2021 or 2031) the number of Lok Sabha seats in BJP dominated Uttar Pradesh would increase from 80 to 91, Bihar would have 50 seats from present 40 seats and Madhya Pradesh from 29 to 33 seats.
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