'Tamil Nadu and Several States Will Lose Seats In The Lok Sabha': P Chidambaram Flags 2027 Census As Trigger For Delimitation

Congress leader and former Union finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday (5 June) accused the Union government of deliberately delaying the national census to facilitate the delimitation exercise.

He stated that conducting the census after 2026 would trigger an immediate delimitation process.

"A delayed Census after 2026 will trigger the provision that delimitation shall be done immediately afterwards. That is why the announcement to conduct a Census in 2027. Since the Census will be conducted in 2027, delimitation will follow," Chidambaram said in a social media post, Times of India reported.

He claimed that Tamil Nadu and several other southern states risk losing parliamentary representation, while northern states could gain seats.

Chidambaram alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is moving "step-by-step to achieve the RSS-BJP's mischievous goal of reducing the representation of the southern states and increasing the representation of the northern states."

The BJP-led central government had initially planned to conduct the decadal census in 2021 but the exercise was delayed due Covid-19 pandemic.

However, it has now been rescheduled to March 2027.

The postponement has sparked discussions about its impact on the delimitation of constituencies, which is carried out based on the latest population data.

However, the government has clarified that the delimitation exercise will be undertaken based on the 2011 census data.

Chidambaram also pointed out that some political parties are downplaying concerns related to the delimitation process.