Thinking beyond the population census

• The delimitation and financial devolution debate in India has raised concerns about the federal character of the nation.

• The development divide in India has its own derivative on the demographic divide, which needs to be recognized in the calculus of delimitation and financial devolution.

• The expiry of the constitutional freeze on the number of parliamentary seats is near, causing anxiety about the political representation of peninsular States and those in the north.

• The history of the delimitation exercise in India during 1951-71 indicates that the number of Lok Sabha seats was increased in response to the population increase, resulting in a population representation per seat.

• The population representation per seat in 2026 is projected to be around 20 lakh, reducing the representation of peninsular States compared to states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, which are lagging in demographic progress.

• The 15th Finance Commission suggested weightage to demographic performance along with population performance, increasing the weight of the population component from 0.15 to 0.27.

• The time has come to go beyond population size as the lone yardstick of allocation and determination of political representation.

• The demographic wisdom is to think beyond population count as a singular yardstick of allocation or devolution.

• The proposed exercise of delimitation and allocation would not escape the complexity of gender- and caste-based reservation of the said allocation.

• A demographic outlook involves recognizing all potential characteristics and attributes to weigh them and differentiate when making any comparative construct involving population count.