Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party was conspiring to weaken southern states politically and financially through a proposed delimitation exercise because it does not have a foothold in the southern part of the country, PTI reported.

“Their plan is to ensure that the states where they have little presence should not have a share at the Centre,” the Congress leader said. “That conspiracy will be resisted.”

Reddy warned that punishing southern states for effectively controlling population growth could lead to a “revolt”.

Delimitation is the process of redrawing the territorial boundaries of an electorate, in this case Lok Sabha constituencies. Article 82 of the Constitution states that after every census is completed, the allocation of Lok Sabha seats to each state must be adjusted based on changes in their population.

The composition of the current Lok Sabha is based on the 1971 census. According to the 84th Amendment Act of 2001, the constituency boundaries were frozen until the first census after 2026, which would be due in 2031.

However, southern states have expressed concerns that population-based delimitation could give an undue advantage to northern and central states in the Lok Sabha.

Reddy on Friday also questioned Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assurance that southern states would not suffer due to a proposed delimitation exercise.

“Amit Shah ji says there will be no decrease in the existing (number of seats),” Reddy said. “He is not saying how much the increase will be for southern states. What is your term of reference (for delimitation)? Without saying whether it is on the basis of population or pro rata, how can Amit Shah ji say there will be no decrease.”

On Wednesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that South Indian states would not lose a single Lok Sabha seat on account of a proposed nationwide delimitation exercise.

Shah’s comments on Wednesday came a day after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin announced an all-party meeting on March 5 in Chennai to discuss the impact of the proposed delimitation exercise, which he claimed could cost his state eight Lok Sabha seats.

On similar lines as Reddy and Stalin, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also claimed that Shah’s assurances were not credible. “It is tainted with malicious intent to create confusion in the southern states,” he alleged.

In a 2019 paper, Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson from the American think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, used 2026 population projections to estimate that the Lok Sabha’s membership would need to be expanded to 846 seats.

Of these, Uttar Pradesh, the largest Hindi belt state, would have 143 seats, up from its current 80. Similarly, Bihar’s seats would nearly double to 79 from 40.

Overall, the proportion of Lok Sabha seats in 10 Hindi belt states and Union Territories – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand – would jump to around 48% from about 42% right now.

Correspondingly, several states outside the Hindi belt such as Kerala, West Bengal and all of the North East would see their representation drop. For Kerala, its representation in the Lok Sabha would drop from nearly 3.7% to around 2.4% as the House’s capacity increases, according to Vaishnav and Hintson.

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