Hyderabad: Chief minister A Revanth Reddy joined a strong chorus of protests from the southern states against the Centre’s proposed delimitation exercise, saying on Friday that Amit Shah‘s statement two days ago that no southern state would see a reduction in parliamentary seats may mean that Lok Sabha seats would not increase in the South.
Other southern state CMs, Tamil Nadu’s MK Stalin most vociferously, have also expressed serious concerns about the proposed delimitation.
Revanth referred to Stalin having called an all-party meeting in Chennai on March 5 to discuss the delimitation exercise. “Yes, 100% I will participate if such a meeting is convened,” he said. “In fact, I raised this issue at the national level and recently said this in Kerala too.”
The reported proposal to take population as the basis for delimitation was a conspiracy, Revanth insisted, adding, “The delimitation should be taken up on a pro-rata basis.”
“Why did Shah not inform the people how many seats will increase in southern and northern states,” he asked reporters at Gandhi Bhavan. “And on what basis will the seats be increased? Will it be based on population or on the number of seats on a pro-rata basis? Because if population is taken as the basis for delimitation, south Indian states would not see an increase as we successfully implemented population control measures when the northern states did not.”
While addressing a rally in Coimbatore on Wednesday, Shah had sought to assure south Indian states that their parliamentary representation would not decrease after delimitation.
Revanth added: “The BJP govt at the Centre, in the garb of delimitation, is conspiring to weaken south Indian states both economically and politically at the national level. BJP does not have good representation in Parliament from south India. It wants to remain in power forever. We will not accept it. This is not good for the country.”
Explaining his pro-rata basis stand, he said, “For example, if a decision is taken to increase 50% seats, then 40 seats would be added to Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats, taking the total to 120. Likewise, Telangana has 17 seats and it should get 9 more seats, taking its tally to 26. If not, let them take the 1971 population census as the basis to do the delimitation exercise.”
On the ongoing argument about the Hindi language being thrust on south Indian states and other non-Hindi-speaking states, Revanth said no one would accept any other language being thrust on them. “Everyone loves their mother tongue,” he said. “Telugu is an ancient language and any conspiracy to make it extinct by thrusting any other language will be repelled with all our strength. Recently, we issued an order making teaching of the Telugu language mandatory in all central and state-run and affiliated schools.”