Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday urged that the 1971 census be the basis for delimitation in 2026 and said if population was considered then the Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu could be reduced. At an all-party meeting in Chennai, Stalin, while attacking the centre government led by the BJP, accused it of linguistic hegemony and paying lip service to the Tamil language for political motive.
Stalin pitched that the current formula for allotting seats in the Madras assembly could unfairly penalise Tamil Nadu and other southern states, during the meeting that had almost all major parties in the state attending. However, Tamil Nadu’s success in controlling its population — due to family planning policies and women’s empowerment — might ironically result in a reduction of seats in the parliament, he said.
“The union government is using a mind set of linguistic hegemony and uses it only as Tamil lip service to get votes,” Stalin said in a news agency quoting him. He further claimed that Tamil Nadu was being wrongly targeted in the development and governance arena and that the farm laws would need to be seen in the context of farm distress.
Concerning the possible unbalance in political representation, Stalin warns that southern states are in danger from the forthcoming delimitation.
“One big rights protest has been pushed on Tamil Nadu to carry forward. Delimitation hangs above the heads of southern states.” According to him, Tamil Nadu is facing a big threat.
The remarks from Tamil Nadu’s leadership indicate a stiff opposition to any delimitation formula that disadvantages states with higher population growth, and thus shifts political power away from South India towards the Hindi Belt in the North.
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