Still, the meeting succeeded in foregrounding the unease in South India about the delimitation process. To be sure, the Centre has yet to announce any road map, and the Union home minister has said the South will not be a loser from the exercise, although it isn’t clear whether this is in terms of representation or proportional representation. The exercise to rationalise the size of the Lok Sabha — creating new parliamentary constituencies and redrawing/eliminating some of the existing ones — was scheduled for 2026 based on the 2021 Census, which itself has been delayed. Multiple scenarios by political scientists suggest that if demography is used as the primary criteria, the number of LS seats will rise dramatically in states such as UP and Bihar, which, in effect, will reduce the share of representation of southern India in Parliament. A lopsided House will have repercussions for the federal balance that is already fraying on the fiscal front.

A key question is if population should be the sole criterion in addressing the issue of equity in political representation. The principle of one person, one vote, one value favours that. But the Indian experience since Independence has been different. Rather than view the issue exclusively through the lens of demographics, administrators preferred a framework that privileged the unit of state/UT over the individual voter to ensure that no region went unrepresented. So, Lakshadweep and Ladakh got Lok Sabha constituencies despite their relatively small population size. And there is a degree of unfairness in penalising the southern states that drew from their legacy of social reforms, invested wisely in education and health, helping them stabilise populations and raise a workforce capable of tapping industrial and service sector jobs.

The delimitation debate has shone light on two fault lines — economic and demographic — that threaten India’s progress. The Centre must listen to JAC so that the North-South disparity does not get reduced to an ugly political spat.