Govt urged to hold all-party meet on delimitation

Vijayawada: The state government should immediately call for a meeting with the leaders of all political parties and intellectuals to discuss the issue of delimitation to avoid the reduction of representation from the southern India in the Lok Sabha, demanded CPM state secretary V Srinivasa Rao.

Addressing the round-table meeting organised by Jana Chaitanya Vedika AP committee on delimitation here on Monday with Vallamreddy Lakshmana Reddy in the chair, Srinivasa Rao said that it was unfortunate that there was no representation from YSRCP, TDP and Jana Sena in the meeting organised on delimitation at Chennai recently.

Particularly, Chandrababu Naidu did not attend the meeting which is highly deplorable. Sizeable number of leaders from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka states participated in the meeting. The delimitation proposal was put forward by the BJP only to benefit the northern Indian states and to gain upper hand against the South Indian states. Chandrababu Naidu who enjoys highest number of seats and strongest leader has become very weak at the national politics, he added.

Senior Congress leader and former MP Dr N Tulasi Reddy opined that the South Indian States would miserably suffer heavy loss if the delimitation was implemented on the basis of the population. It will be harmful to the national unity and integrity.

The NDA government should follow the model implemented by the late Indira Gandhi and Vajpayee and maintain status quo to the number of Lok Sabha seats.

Jana Chaitanya Vedika state president Vallamreddy Lakshmana Reddy demanded the chief minister to convene the State Assembly to collect the opinions of all the MLAs and submit them to the Central government.

Though the BJP has even not one percent of members in the AP Assembly for the last one decade, it has been getting hundred percent support. If the Lok Sabha seats were announced as per the 2026 census, Tamil Nadu would lose 9 parliamentary constituencies, Andhra Pradesh five, Kerala 6, West Bengal 4 and Odisha 3 seats. But Uttar Pradesh would gain 12 seats, Bihar 10, Rajasthan 7 and Madhya Pradesh 5 seats.

Former minister Vadde Sobhanadreswara Rao felt that the Central government would allocate more funds to UP, Bihar and other states than Southern states. He suggested that more number of Rajya Sabha seats could be allocated to the states which are losing Lok Sabha seats. No State would suffer any loss, if delimitation was implemented as per the Census of 1971.

Former MLC K S Lakshmana Rao pointed out that the American Senate has 100 members and irrespective of the population, each state gets two senators. The US House of Representatives has 435 members for the last three centuries and there was no problem.

There has been population explosion in the North Indian states due to feudalism, illiteracy and poverty and the population has considerably decreased in South Indian states due to high literacy rate. “It is not proper to punish the states politically for striving hard to control population,” he said.

CPI senior leader Akkineni Vanaja alleged that the BJP has discriminating against the southern Indian states by allocating 60 per cent of Central funds only to seven states.

The corrupt leaders of the regional parties are in a helpless condition to fight against injustice.

The roundtable unanimously passed four resolutions including demanding the AP Chief Minister to take initiative to organise all-party meeting on delimitation, to convene the Assembly session to discuss delimitation to suggest ways to overcome the problem, to send the leaders of the three major political parties of YSRCP, TDP, Jana Sena to attend the conference on delimitation to be held soon in Hyderabad, the Chief Minister to take initiative to organise district-level meetings on delimitation and submit the outcome to the Central government.

Congress leaders Naraharisetti Narasimha Rao, Kolanukonda Sivaji, political analyst Dr K Vasundhara, Taxpayers Association district president MV Anjaneyulu and others also participated.