Chief Minister Revanth Reddy alleged that the BJP has chosen the weapon of the delimitation of constituencies to take revenge on the South electing BJP only in a few seats in the Lok Sabha elections and is trying to reduce the representation of the South.
He deplored that the Southern states are forced to pay the price for comprehensively implementing family planning as per the orders of the Center. He said that not only the South but also states like Punjab will lose due to the delimitation, while the more backward states like Rajasthan, Bihar and UP will benefit more.
He spoke at the India Today Conclave held in Delhi on Friday. He expressed concern that if redistribution is done on the basis of population, it will be a great injustice to the South, and even if it is done on a pro rata basis, the same situation will prevail.
“For example, there are currently 80 seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. If the seats are increased by 50 percent according to pro rata, they will increase to 120. At the same time, Tamil Nadu currently has 39 seats. If they increase by 50 percent there, it will become 60 seats”, he said.
“Currently, the difference between the assembly seats in those two states is only 40. But, if the seats are increased according to pro rata, this difference will reach 60. If there is such a difference in one state, what is the situation in the other states? “, he asked.
Revanth Reddy explained that there are currently 126 Lok Sabha seats in the South, and if they increase by 50 percent, they will increase to a maximum of 62 here. In total, it will not exceed 185 seats. He recalled that the BJP does not have adequate representation in the South, and even after coming to power at the Center for the third time, out of the 240 seats that the party won here, it won only 29 seats.
Alleging that is why it is seeking revenge, he protested why an all-party meeting is not being held if everyone wants good things to happen? He asked why the government’s decision is being left to the officials? He demanded that all political parties be called and discussed on the delimitation.
Telangana Chief Minister said that the delimitation of constituencies should be carried out according to the 1971 census before the family planning policy. When asked if Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin was saying that people should have more children, he laughed and said, “Let’s take delimitation after 30 years. Then the number will increase based on the strength of the South. Then our constituencies will also increase.”
Revanth said that Hindi is only the language spoken by the majority of people in this country, but it is not the national language. He suggested that there is no need to force Hindi, and that anyone should be given the opportunity to learn any language. “After Hindi, there are people who speak the most Telugu and Bengali languages. And how much importance is given to Telugu? Why is Telugu not in the civil services exams!?” he asked.