A political confrontation is building up with a year to go before the freeze on the delimitation exercise ends.
The DMK has taken the lead in opposing the exercise and is trying to get other Opposition parties on its side to demand that the exercise be put on hold for another 25 years. The exercise is carried out to ensure that every constituency has a similar number of people, so that every lawmaker represents, roughly speaking, the same number of people.
The issue has been extremely contentious in India. On the demand of the southern states, delimitation was frozen for 25 years, first in 1976 and then in 2001. The southern states had argued that they stood to lose out in the delimitation exercise because they had performed better on population control. The same argument is being made again by DMK and other parties as the Centre began talking about carrying out delimitation after 2026.
To understand some of the issues involved, and a possible way forward, The Indian Express has invited Yogendra Yadav, member, Swaraj India, and national convenor, Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan, for an online Explained Live event Friday. Yadav, who has written extensively on the subject, will be in conversation with Monojit Majumdar, Editor Explained, and Amitabh Sinha, Deputy Editor.
Explained.Live is a series of explanatory conversations that The Indian Express hosts from time to time.
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