The first meeting of the Joint Action Committee urging for a ‘Fair Delimitation’ demanded the extension of the freeze on Parliamentary constituencies based on the 1971 Census population by another 25 years and the formation of a core committee consisting members of Parliament of the representative States to coordinate the parliamentary strategies to counter any attempt by the Union Government to undertake any delimitation exercise.
Chennai:The first meeting of the Joint Action Committee urging for a ‘Fair Delimitation’ demanded the extension of the freeze on Parliamentary constituencies based on the 1971 Census population by another 25 years and the formation of a core committee consisting members of Parliament of the representative States to coordinate the parliamentary strategies to counter any attempt by the Union Government to undertake any delimitation exercise.
Attended by a wide range of political leaders representing 14 parties in seven States, the meeting demanded that the Union Government enacted necessary constitutional amendments to extend the freeze on delimitation with the political parties from different states represented in the meeting initiating efforts to bring about appropriate Legislative Assembly resolutions in their respective States on the issue and communicate the same to the Union Government.
Expressing deep concern over the lack of transparency and clarity in the impending delimitation exercise that the Union Government was planning to carry out without any consultation with the various stakeholders, the meeting appreciated the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin for taking up the initiative to safeguard the political and economic future of performing States in India.
The meeting unanimously resolved that any delimitation exercise carried out by the Union Government should enable political parties of all States, State government and other stakeholders to deliberate, discuss and contribute towards it.
Any move to improve the content and character of democracy should be carried out transparently and the States which had effectively implemented the population control programme leading to their population coming down, should not be penalized, it said.
The Core Committee of MPs should submit a Joint Representation on the above lines to the Prime Minister during the ongoing Parliamentary session, the meeting resolved and decided to have their second rendezvous in Telangana as a public meeting to create public awareness on the issue.
‘The JAC will also undertake necessary efforts to disseminate information on the history and context of past delimitation exercises and the consequences of the proposed delimitation among the citizens of their respective States, through a coordinated public opinion mobilization strategy,’ a resolution said.
Apart from Stalin, three Chief Ministers and two deputy Chief Ministers took part in the deliberations. The Chief Ministers were Pinayari Vijayan (Kerala), Bhagwant Mann (Punjab) and Revanth Reddy (Telangana) and the deputy Chief Ministers were D K Shiva Kumar from Karnataka and Udhayanidhi Stalin from Tamil Nadu.
Most of the DMK leaders and MPs like Kanimozhi and T R Baalu attended the meeting along with several leaders from the States of Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Punjab.
Leaders from Kerala were: Binoy Viswam (CPI), PMA Salam (IUML), Jose K Mani (Kerala Congress- Mani), Francis George (Kerala Congress), N K Premachandran (RSP) and Kambakudi Sudhakaran (Congress).
Leaders from Karnataka were Rajendra Cholan and A S Ponnana (Congress) and those from Punja were, Daljit Singh Cheema, Balwinder Singh Bhunder (both SAD) and Sanjay Singh (AAP. From Odisha Sanjay Kumar Das Barma (BJD) and Bhakta Charan Das (Congress), Amar Patnaik (BJD) took part in the deliberations.
The Telangana leaders were Mahesh Goud (Congress), K T Rama Rao (BRS), Imtiaz Jaleel (AIMIM), P Vinoth Kumar (BRS) and from Andhra Pradesh Udhay Srinivas (JSP) and Midhun Reddy (YSRCP) were at the meeting.
Most of the leaders who met the media at the venue expressed their opposition to the BJP rule. Rama Rao of BRS, who advocated the delimitation of Assembly constituencies, explained how the BJP failed to increase the seat of the Telangana Assembly from 119 to 153 as it was promised.
Rama Rao said that delimitation should not be based on population but GDP and added that though the population of his State was 2 per cent of the country’s, its GDP amounted to 5.1 per cent.
