States with successful family planning record will be ‘penalised’ in delimitation exercise: Congress

Congress warns delimitation may penalize States meeting family planning goals, with some losing seats and others gaining.

Delimitation could “penalise” the States that adhered to familiy planning goals and reduced total fertility rates, the Congress warned on Tuesday (March 11, 2025).

Amid the delimitation row spearheaded by the southern States, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh, in a long X post, highlighted nine States which may lose between one to eight Lok Sabha seats each, while other Sstates like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are going to gain 11 and 10 seats respectively.

”The States that lose seats will do so simply because of their early success in family planning and reducing total fertility rates which has been the national objective. They will be penalised for it,” he said.

Mr. Ramesh backed his claim by citing a March 2019 analysis by two scholars — Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson — who used data from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses.

“The States that lose seats are Tamil Nadu (8), Kerala (8), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (8), Odisha (3), West Bengal (4), Karnataka (2), Himachal Pradesh (1), Punjab (1), and Uttarakhand (1). Assam, J&K, and Maharashtra don’t lose or gain any seat,” Mr. Ramesh said.

“The States that gain are Uttar Pradesh (11), Bihar (10), Rajasthan (6), Madhya Pradesh (4), Jharkhand (1), Haryana (1), Gujarat (1), Delhi (1), and Chhattisgarh (1),” he added.

The Congress leader noted that the present State-wise distribution of seats in the Lok Sabha is based on the 1971 Census. Article 82, which was amended with effect from February 2002, provides for a fresh distribution based on the population data from the first Census after 2026, he said. The exact timing of this decennial Census is open to question since the 2021 Census has yet to be conducted, Mr. Ramesh added.