Delimitation Issues in Womens Reservation Bill, 2023

 

Latest Context:

Recently, the Indian Parliament passed the Women's Reservation Bill, 2023, seen as a significant step towards gender equality in politics. However, the future of this law is closely linked with a related issue called "delimitation," which is causing disagreement among political parties.

Understanding Delimitation 

• What Is Delimitation?

• Delimitation is when you redraw the boundaries of voting districts to make sure each one has roughly the same number of voters.
• It's done after each census to make sure each district has one representative in both the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
• This way, no area is overrepresented or underrepresented.

• Constitutional Rules for Delimitation:

• Article 82: After each census, the Parliament passes a Delimitation Act, enabling it to reallocate seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.
• Article 170: The minimum number of members in a state Legislative Assembly is 60, and the maximum is 500, based on population data. The delimitation process and seat distribution rely on the population size determined by the latest census.

Delimitation Commission:

• In 1952, the Delimitation Commission Act became a law.
• When this Act becomes effective, the central government establishes a Delimitation Commission.
• Delimitation Commissions have been formed four times: in 1952, 1963, 1973, and 2002, as per the Acts of 1952, 1962, 1972, and 2002.
• The President of India appoints the Delimitation Commission, which collaborates with the Election Commission of India.
• The main job of the commission is to redraw constituency boundaries based on the most recent census.
• The current boundaries of Lok Sabha and State Assembly constituencies were set using the 2001 Census data by the Delimitation Commission of 2002.
• However, the number of seats assigned to each state in the Lok Sabha and the total number of seats in a Legislative Assembly were fixed using the 1971 Census data through the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976.
• This suspension was extended until after the first census post-2026 by the 84th Amendment Act of 2001.

How Delimitation Connects to the Women's Reservation Bill:

• The Indian government says the Women's Reservation Bill, 2023, will only start after delimitation is completed using recent census data.
• The COVID-19 pandemic and other issues have delayed this census data, pushing it to 2024-25.
• The government believes linking reservation and delimitation will make seat allocation fair and transparent, increasing seats for both men and women.

Concerns About Delimitation

• Possible Underrepresentation:

• A big worry is that states like Telangana may face underrepresentation if delimitation depends on population.
• Southern states have controlled population growth but might lose seats to faster-growing northern states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
• This could mean less political influence for the economically strong South.

• Linking With Women's Reservation Bill:

• Opposition parties disagree with linking the Women's Reservation Bill to delimitation.
• They think there's no need to combine the two and that the government could have allowed women's reservation without this linkage.

Conclusion:

In summary, the Women's Reservation Bill, 2023, is tied to delimitation, which is causing concerns, especially regarding potential underrepresentation of some states and the need to link these two issues.

 

Question: Which constitutional article allows the Parliament to pass a Delimitation Act after each census?

a) Article 82

b) Article 170

c) Article 200

d) Article 342

 

Answer: a) Article 82