SC seats in LS may go up by seven

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 21. Although the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies would be frozen till the year 2026 by the Constitution (91st) Amendment Bill, the total number of reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the Lok Sabha may go up by about seven from the current strength of 130.

There were indications today that in the winter session of Parliament the Government would introduce legislation to set up a delimitation commission which would redraw the boundaries of constituencies to balance the voter strength in each constituency within a State or Union Territory without changing the total number of seats in a State. An urgent need to undertake this exercise has been felt as in some States, especially in the urban areas, huge discrepancies have crept in. Within a State some constituencies are 10 times larger than others in terms of voter strength.

The delimitation exercise would be undertaken on the basis of the 1991 census data since the 2001 census figures may be ready only by the yearend and beginning the exercise after that would further delay the entire process. Ideally, the Government would like to complete the exercise several months ahead of polls scheduled for next year in some States, including Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. With a comparatively larger increase in the population of Scheduled Castes in some States in relation to the general increase in population the expectation is that the total number of reserved Scheduled Caste seats in the Lok Sabha may go up from 81 to about 88 while the Scheduled Tribe seats may remain static at 49. The SC seats may also go up in the Assemblies of some States, including Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

Clause 2 of Article 330 in the Constitution provides that seats for Scheduled Castes be reserved roughly in proportion to their population in each State. In some States the total percentage of the SC population has gone up signalling an increase in the seats reserved for them.

Although the Constitution also provides for rotation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe seats on the basis of changes in population, this may be resisted by the fairly powerful lobby of SC MPs.

Till 1971 the delimitation exercise was taken up regularly every 10 years on the basis of the previous census. However, States with better performance on the family planning front began objecting, pointing out that their representation in Parliament would come down while those with a larger growth of population would get additional representation in the Lok Sabha. It was then agreed that the total number of Lok Sabha seats in each State would be frozen till the year 2001, and now that is being extended to the year 2026 by when India hopes to stabilise her population.

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