Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has asked southern states to jointly oppose the Union government’s population-based expansion of Lok Sabha seats and has proposed a different model for the exercise. He has also opposed the Union government’s attempts to link the delimitation exercise with political reservation for women, pointing out that these are unrelated constitutional aspects.The Union government is keen to expand the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 815 based on population criteria. Instead, Reddy has backed a new “hybrid” formula for the imminent expansion of Lok Sabha seats and has asked chief ministers who stand at a disadvantage under the current proposal to rally behind him.He has suggested that the 272 seats (50% of 543) that the Union government aims to increase be divided into two parts, with 136 seats distributed among all states pro rata on the basis of population and the remaining 136 seats prioritised for best-performing states for the growth of the national economy.It is the latter part of his proposal, based on Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), that makes it structurally opposed to the Union government’s delimitation plans.Reddy said at a press conference on Tuesday (April 14):Southern states contributed to the national economy and created employment and job opportunities significantly. How can you punish us? A blanket increase of 50 per cent seats based on population will do severe injustice to southern states as governments can be installed at the Centre without their say. This is no longer a political issue but something concerning the public, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to exploit dangerously.He followed it up with a letter to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, which he made public on X:Dear Shri @narendramodi JiI am writing this open letter to you in response to the latest proposal to increase Lok Sabha seats to 850.#LokSabhaDelimitation pic.twitter.com/4M566g78kU— Revanth Reddy (@revanth_anumula) April 14, 2026Reddy’s suggestion has raised a different set of concerns about whether the constitution allows factors like GSDP (the GDP of states) to come into play in delimitation, an exercise that redraws the boundaries of Lok Sabha (and therefore State Assembly) constituencies, based on the constitutional norm of equal representation.He has also written to Chief Ministers of all southern states seeking a united struggle against the Union government’s proposal, which is detailed in one of three Bills the Modi government wants to clear in a special session of Parliament later this week.One of Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s letters to chief ministers, addressed to Karnataka Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah. The letter welcomes political reservation for women – but says it must not be linked with delimitation.With the increase in India’s population, the redrawing of political constituencies has been on the cards, but has been put off by previous governments in light of the imbalance in population growth rates between different parts of the country, especially the demographic divergence between the southern and northern states.Earlier, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah shared on X his concerns with sticking to the current population criteria for delimitation. Sharing an article he has published in Kannada Prabha newspaper regarding delimitation, he wrote:States that will benefit from the increase in Lok Sabha constituencies are the northern Indian states. States like Karnataka, which have prioritised and achieved population control, will face injustice because of this. Our demand is that the voice of the southern states in Parliament should not weaken due to delimitation.ಲೋಕಸಭಾ ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರಗಳ ಹೆಚ್ಚಳದಿಂದ ಲಾಭ ಪಡೆಯುವವರು ಉತ್ತರ ಭಾರತದ ರಾಜ್ಯಗಳು.ಜನಸಂಖ್ಯಾ ನಿಯಂತ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಆದ್ಯತೆಯಾಗಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡು ಸಾಧನೆ ಮಾಡಿದ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದಂತಹ ರಾಜ್ಯಗಳಿಗೆ ಇದರಿಂದ ಅನ್ಯಾಯವಾಗಲಿದೆ. ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರ ಮರುವಿಂಗಡಣೆಯಿಂದ ಸಂಸತ್ತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ದಕ್ಷಿಣದ ರಾಜ್ಯಗಳ ದನಿ ಕ್ಷೀಣಿಸಬಾರದು ಎನ್ನುವುದು ನಮ್ಮ ಆಗ್ರಹ.ಕೇಂದ್ರ ಸರ್ಕಾರವು… pic.twitter.com/uVJMImCiIN— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) April 14, 2026“If there is a provision in the constitution to factor in such suggestions or required amendments, then it can go ahead,” a former adviser to the Telangana government on finance and retired Indian Economic Service officer G.R. Reddy told The Wire.A retired Supreme Court judge, Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy, reserved his comment until he had perused the Constitution Amendment Bill brought by the Union government related to this matter. But he did say that the “delimitation of parliament constituencies has landed the country in a difficult situation this time”.Revanth Reddy recalled the Supreme Court verdict fixing a 50% ceiling on reservations in education and employment while pushing his idea of GSDP-based enhancement for 50% of Lok Sabha seats. He said the apex court recognised that reservations cannot exceed 50% and that the balance must be filled on merit.Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, DMK leader TR Baalu, BRS leader KT Rama Rao and others during the first Joint Action Committee (JAC) meeting of states over the proposed delimitation of Parliamentary seats by the Centre, in Chennai, Saturday, March 22, 2025. Photo: PTI.“In the same way, I am asking that 136 seats (50%) be distributed on a population basis and the remaining 136 seats be given to best performers in gross domestic product (GDP) on merit,” he said.Reddy strongly criticised the Union government’s move to link delimitation – which would entail increasing the number of seats in Lok Sabha – with political reservations for women. Both were separate issues that had to be dealt with separately, he said.He conveyed the Congress party’s complete support to the reservation of seats for women, as discussed at the recent Congress Working Committee meeting, which he attended in New Delhi.In the case of delimitation and the rise in total number of constituencies, he said that the Union government’s move to enhance seats by 50% was fraught with the danger of widening the gap between northern and southern states if population were considered as the benchmark.The south stands punished with fewer seats owing to effective population control measures taken by the states, while the north would gain due to unchecked population growth. This is despite southern states emerging as financial capitals of the country with the highest contribution to the national economy, while their northern counterparts are confined as political capitals.“Yet, the south is looked at as subservient to the north,” he asserted.He said that the number of Lok Sabha seats in the north would go up from 413 to 621, while the increase would be only from 130 to 195 in the south. It meant, he said, that people of the southern states were being reduced to second-class citizens, who would have no role in government formation at the Union.Reddy’s proposal to consider the GSDP as a factor when enhancing seats by 50% was welcomed as a progressive step by his party, while the Congress party’s rivals objected to it. A former Bharat Rashtra Samiti Member of Parliament, B. Vinod Kumar, told The Wire that population was the [correct] criterion, going by the law of the land – as per the Constitution on delimitation.“Nowhere in the world is GSDP considered in delimitation of territorial constituencies for parliaments. Even if GSDP is factored in, it is Maharashtra, which is at the top in this category, that will benefit the most. Maharashtra’s seats will go up further from its present 48 [seats in Lok Sabha]. Tamil Nadu is at number two, Gujarat is third and Karnataka fourth. Of what use is Reddy’s suggestion to Telangana?” Vinod Kumar asked.Telangana ranks at 8th or 9th position among the top ten states and is among the better-performing states in terms of economic indicators.The BJP state president and senior advocate, N. Ramchander Rao, said Article 81 of the Constitution was clear that delimitation should be practicable. But Reddy’s suggestion was not at all practicable, according to him. He said, “GSDP has nothing to do with the composition of Parliament. Also, we are not in a capitalist economy to take it into account.”He described the proposal as absurd, saying it would enhance discrimination between north and south.A retired bureaucrat, B.P. Acharya, however, said GSDP as a measure to enhance seats was a good model because it echoed what all Finance Commissions also do – reward states on the basis of their relative performance on economic/social indicators. Accordingly, an increase in seats for states that do well on GSDP could incentivise economic growth, but its practicality and political overtones did have to be assessed.Retired professor and president of Telangana Jana Samiti, M. Kodandaram, also appreciated Reddy’s suggestion, with the rider that a combination of economic conditions and population could balance political disequilibrium. It could not be rejected outright. “If not valid, address concerns raised by him in a different way,” Kodandaram added.