The Telangana Assembly today passed a resolution opposing the Union government's plan for population-based delimitation.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy presented the resolution.
In his address, the Chief Minister said that the southern States had complied with the Centre's directives on population control while the Northern States had not, and that the States that had effectively managed their population should not be adversely affected by the delimitation process.
He said that the southern States currently held 24% of the representation in the Lok Sabha, and that this would decrease to 19% if the delimitation based on population was implemented.
He also said that despite accounting for 24% of national representation, the southern States contributed 36% of the taxes to the Union government - and yet received much lesser back from the Centre.
Reddy called for unity against the proposed delimitation regardless of political affiliations.
He took the opportunity to also say that the number of Telangana Assembly constituencies needed to be increased to 153, and that the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) needed to be adjusted to reflect current population figures.
He said that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act had promised an increase in Assembly constituencies for both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, but that that had not materialised due to a lack of political will. In contrast, the number of constituencies in Sikkim and Jammu & Kashmir had been adjusted according to the 2011 census, he said.
filed in:Telangana, Revanth Reddy, Delimitation, Assembly, Telangana Assembly, Assembly Sessions, South India