Question

Article 82 of the Constitution of India mandates the establishment of a Delimitation Commission. India has had four Delimitation Commissions in 1952, 1963, 1973, and 2002. Can you find out the reason for the long interval between 1973 and 2002 with the help of your teacher?

Answer 1

The 29-year gap between the 1973 and 2002 Delimitation Commissions was due to a constitutional freeze introduced by the Government of India through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976. This amendment suspended the redrawing of constituency boundaries and locked the allocation of Lok Sabha and State Assembly seats based on the 1971 Census data until after the 2001 Census. The main reasons for this policy implementation include:

1. Protecting Family Planning Initiatives: During the 1970s, the Union Government strongly promoted population control and family planning programmes. States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu successfully implemented these measures, which led to a significant reduction in their population growth rates.
2. Preventing Political Disadvantage: If delimitation had been carried out after every census based on population, states that had successfully controlled population growth could have lost seats in Parliament. On the other hand, states with higher population growth might have gained more seats. This could have unfairly disadvantaged states that had made successful efforts to control their population.
3. Maintaining Federal Equilibrium: The freeze helped reduce this imbalance and protected states that had successfully controlled population growth from losing political representation. After the freeze ended, the 84th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2001 allowed the establishment of the 2002 Delimitation Commission to redraw constituency boundaries based on population. However, the total number of seats allotted to each state remained based on the 1971 Census until the first Census after 2026.