HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Saturday said the centre should either exempt south Indian states and Punjab from the delimitation exercise based on population or pro-rata basis, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi-govt can follow Indira Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee-model of not increasing lok sabha seats but reorganise them based on latest census, taking state as a unit.
CM Revanth put forth this demand at the joint action committee meeting of south Indian states, convened by Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin in Chennai.
“If the BJP govt at the centre does delimitation on population or pro-rata basis, South India will lose political voice. The North will make us secondary citizens. Everyone here agrees, we will not accept an unfair delimitation because then states like UP, Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, will dominate the rest of the country. We cannot accept it at any cost,” Revanth said.
The meeting in Chennai brought together the CMs of Kerala, Telangana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, deputy CM of Karnataka and party presidents and MPs.
On his part, the Telangana CM suggested some of the options that the Modi-govt can follow. “Don’t increase the Lok Sabha seats for another 25 years. Do delimitation taking the state as a unit. Conduct the delimitation within states. Change the boundaries of LS seats inside the state based on the latest census. Increase SC, ST seats in states and provide 33% women reservations in every state.”
Revanth said: “We are one country. We respect it. But we cannot accept this proposed delimitation because it will politically limit us. It will punish us for being performing states. We have to stop BJP from implementing any unfair delimitation. BJP is implementing a policy of demographic penalty. It is time for the centre to repay and reward us for our great role and contribution in nation building for the last 50 years.”
If the BJP wants to do delimitation at any cost, then let it increase the south Indian states lok sabha seats to 33 per cent. “Today, the south has 130 seats out of 543 in lok sabha. It means a political proportion of 24 percent. The political demand of the south is to increase this to 33 percent after delimitation. Anything less would reduce south to a role of a passive audience in the political theatre of India. I request the entire south, and Punjab, to leave differences and unitedly fight for this cause,” he said.
Revanth also announced that he would organise the next meeting of southern states and Punjab in Hyderabad soon.