By Kitdor H. Blah
Article 81 & clause 2 of the Indian Constitution remains to this day, the only law which defines the manner in which seats in the Lok Sabha are to be allotted to each state and each parliamentary constituency. According to this constitutional formula, the ratio between the number of seats of each state in the House of the People and the total population of that state must be the same across all states. Similarly, the ratio between the population of each parliamentary constituency within a state and the number of seats allotted to that constituency must be the same throughout that state. This formula which speaks of ratio between population and seats might seem confusing until we realize that India started with multi-member constituencies. Multi-member constituencies were meant to increase participation of SCs/STs. A large constituency could hold two seats, a general seat and a SC/ST seat, or it could even have a general seat, a ST seat and a SC seat. The first Lok Sabha elections had 489 elected seats from 401 constituencies, made up of 314 single member constituencies, 86 two member constituencies and one three member constituency. This multi-member constituency created problems in the 1957 elections where ST/SC candidates contested and won from both the general and reserved seats. The Supreme Court also upheld the ability of SC/ST candidates to contest from both reserved and general seats. Due to opposition,the Government abolished this system in 1961. Therefore, in light of the fact that we only have single member constituencies today, the constitutional formula in Article 81 effectively means that each seat in the House of the People must represent the same number of people as every other seat in the House.
But this seat to population ratio formula was never intended to be absolute. The formula was circumvented in two ways in order to protect the federal nature of the country and to give equitable representation to lower population states. One was that Article 81(2) contained a proviso that those states with population lower than 60 lakhs did not have to have the same seat to population ratio as those states with population more than 60 lakhs. For example, after the 1971 census and the delimitation of 1972-75, the average population to seat ratio of the major states was 10.40 lakhs. However, delimitation concessions were made for smaller states and UT’s which together shared 36 seats. During this time, the population of Meghalaya was only 10.12 lakhs, however it was allotted two seats. Mizoram with a population of 3.3 lakhs was allotted one seat. The second way that this formula was circumvented was that the government amended the Constitution in 1976 and again in 2001 so that delimitation would remain tied to the 1971 census until the year 2000 and again until the year 2026, so that all future censuses from 1981 to 2026 would not change the states’ representation in Parliament. This was done for two reasons – the uneven population growth between states would have affected the representation equity between states and secondly, the government itself had been implementing a National Population Policy since 1976, and by freezing delimitation to the 1971 census, it provided an incentive for states to implement population control without fear of under-representation.The assumptions were that by the year 2000, or by the year 2026, all states would have successfully achieved population stabilization.
Just as the multi-member constituencies system created problems of representation, the 106th Constitution Amendment Act, which provides for one third reservation of seats for women in the LokSabha and the State Assemblies, has also created problems with regards to representation. The first problem is that if the strength of the House remains the same, then the implementation of women’s reservation will necessarily exclude many of the sitting male Members of Parliament whose constituencies end up being reserved for women. At present, there are 74 female members in the House. Even if these are all included in the reserved constituencies, it would still mean that 107 sitting MP’s would be excluded. The question of which constituencies to reserve for women is a political dilemma. To circumvent this problem, the government, through the defeated 131st Constitution Amendment Bill, had sought to increase the strength of the House from the existing maximum permissible limit of 550 members (states 530, UT’s 20) to 850 members (states 815, UT’s 35).
The Women’s Reservation Act itself, which was introduced in parliament in 2023 by the Law Minister and which passed with a thumping 454-2 majority, says that the reservation for women will come into effect only after delimitation is done as per the figures of the first census to be done after the Act is passed. The government, through the 131st Amendment Bill, had sought to change direction, and to de-link the Women’s Reservation Act from the first published census after 2023, and to link it to the next delimitation as per “such census, as Parliament may by law determine, of which the relevant figures have been published.” Thus, the Government is displaying one of two things: either a sudden hurriedness to implement women’s reservation or a sudden hurriedness to undertake delimitation. Regardless, any delimitation that is delinked from the 1971 census will concentrate power in the northern Hindi belt states due to their disproportionately high population growth. If after 50 years since 1976, the States have not equally succeeded in implementing population control, it would be undemocratic to enforce any other census on delimitation, and erase all the principles that guided past governments, such as federalism, equity between states, population stabilization, and delimitation concessions.
But the Law Minister and the Prime Minister had attempted to allay this fear by proposing that every state would increase their seats in the House by 50% as per a pro-rata basis. This means the strength of the House would also increase by 50% from 543 to 815. The percentage share of the states in the strength of the House would remain the same as it is now and the extra 50% would cover the seats reserved for women. But the problem with this statement is that there is no provision either in the Constitution or in the defeated 131st Amendment Bill itself for a pro-rata increase in the seats of the states. The Amendment Bill sought to amend all the relevant articles, in the Constitution such as 55, 81, 82, 170, 330, 332, 334A, that affect the definition of population for the purposes of delimitation of Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, reservation of seats for SCs/STs, valuation of MLA’s/MP’s votes in election of President, but it does not touch on Article 81(2) which remains the only law that governs the formula for delimitation and allotment of seats in Lok Sabha. So, that statement was a blatantly false assurance. But even if this could be done, and all states could increase their seats by 50%, the lower population states would still be losers when it comes to the election for President. If Article 55 is no longer tied to the 1971 census, then for the purpose of election of President of India, the value of the votes of MLA’s of lower population states will diminish and the value of votes of MLA’s of higher population states will increase, as per the formula – Value of MLA Vote = (State Population divided by Assembly Seats) divided by 1000. The President is known as the First Citizen. He ideally sits between the Parliament and the people of the country. If the value of the votes of any state’s MLA’s is diminished, then this also affects the federal nature of the country and the equity between states.
Conclusion: Besides diluting the federal nature of the country, the concentration of power in a few higher population states also makes the formula for control much simpler not just for the ruling party, but also for the corporate sector, lobbies and foreign entities. A country is easier to control if you only need to influence fewer dominant states/regions, either by money or ideology. The only possible solution would be that any future delimitation that is based on any census other than 1971 must come with new concessions and new category of states. The small states (below 60 lakhs population) already have their own category under Article 81(2). Those states with disproportionately high growth of population must also be placed in their own separate category. The states that have successfully implemented population control must also be placed in their own category. The seat to population ratio must be different for each of these category of states. The ‘one vote one value’ doctrine was never based on an absolute seat to population formula, as circumvented by the Constitution itself in the proviso under Article 81(2), and as circumvented by past governments.
