It's Time To Cap The Number Of Seats In Lok Sabha

(MENAFN- The Arabian Post)

By Nantoo Banerjee

If in the United States, the world's second largest federal democracy, the number of seats in the House of Representatives could remain capped at 435 since 1913, there is no reason to justify the latest delimitation exercise to freshly fix the number of seats and boundaries of territorial constituencies in each state of India for the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies in keeping with the population growth. The country is now going through a census exercise after a gap of several years. In fact, India should be more concerned about how to contain its population growth and make its legislatures truly contributive to the electorate. Two years ago, India surpassed China as the world's most populated country. This is despite the fact that China is nearly three times larger than India in terms of land mass. Ideally, India should focus on how to control the population size to benefit the public from the country's real time economic growth after the current census exercise. The delimitation exercise should take a back seat.

The country's Lok Sabha would perform well without an additional number of backbenchers, who contribute little to Parliament proceedings by raising public issues and participating in debates. The number of seats and boundaries of territorial constituencies in each State for the Lok Sabha and Legislative assemblies also represents the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in these houses. Although the Articles 82 and 170 of the Constitution provide that the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative assemblies as well as its division into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted after each Census, they need to be amended to freeze the number of seats in state assemblies and Parliament. The 'delimitation process' is performed by the 'Delimitation Commission' which is set up under an act of Parliament. In the past, such an exercise was carried out after the 1951, 1961 and 1971 Census.

In the US, the number of seats in the lower house has remained frozen since 1913 although the country's population has increased almost four times from 94 million to around 340 million, last year. The US Congress had capped the number of House Representatives at 435 since the Apportionment Act of 1911 except for a temporary increase to 437 during the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states in 1959. Over the last century, US Congressional Districts have more than tripled the size since the 1910 census, listing roughly 212,000 inhabitants per district. While the number of House Members for each state is determined according to a statistical formula in federal law, each state is responsible for designing the shape of its districts so long as it accords with various provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which seeks to protect racial minorities' voting and representation rights.

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What India badly needs to do is to improve the quality of its Parliament and state legislature members. Political parties seem to be more interested in grabbing seats in the legislature than effectively using the lawmaking forum to address the needs of the day. They should discuss and debate on the efficacy of the existing laws, amend them if necessary, and introduce new ones to tackle new issues. To grab seats in the legislature, these political parties would go to any extent to recruit even some seemingly politically dumb popular film stars and entertainment world personalities to win elections.

Such representatives are often seen occupying seats in Parliament without making any contribution to the proceedings during their entire tenure. Not even 30 percent of Lok Sabha members show the desire for active participation. Occasionally, some are even seen to doze off to sleep undisturbed by heated debates in the legislature. What matters to a political party is sheerly the number it has in Parliament and probably nothing else. The delimitation exercise to raise the seats in the legislature may unfortunately focus only on the numbers. This needs to be stopped. Moreover, the exercise may punish states having lower or even negative population growth and reward those contributing to the country's population explosion. This is hardly acceptable.

The country's members of legislatures, including those of Lok Sabha, are costing the nation dearly with little improvement of their functions. For instance, the cost to the exchequer of a MP could be well over Rs. 60 million per annum, including salaries, perks and other expenses, and MPLADs (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme). Only last week, the national government approved a 24 percent pay hike for MPs, effective from April 2023. In effect, the main job of a Member of Parliament is to legislate on the 'Union List' matters or modify them through amendments and hold the Union Government accountable.

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For the last five decades, Indian Parliament has functioned with 543 Lok Sabha MPs while the country's population increased from 550 million to 1.45 billion. India's population is projected to peak around 1.65-1.70 billion in the next three decades whereas the United Nations has projected China's population at around 1.21 billion by 2060. China's One-Child Policy, implemented from 1979 to 2015, helped curb the country's population growth by restricting most families to one child. The India government may think on such lines or follow a system that rewards small families and penalises those producing more children ignoring their social and financial constraints.

Under the circumstances, expansion of the legislature in keeping with the size of population would be a wrong step forward. It will put the states, having a good population management record, in an awkward situation vis a vis others showing uncontrolled population growth. In recent years, some of India's highly populous states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and all the states located in the North-East region witnessed perceptible increases in population. It will be good for both the centre and states to cap the size of the legislature irrespective of the population expansion to ensure the proper functioning of the legislatures. The delimitation exercise may wait for now. (IPA Service )

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