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Don't penalise us for population control, says TN

The Tamil Nadu assembly today unanimously passed a resolution urging the Union government to bring a constitutional amendment to retain the present number of Lok Sabha seats allotted to each state and ensure that Tamil Nadu, which has been successful in the implementation of family welfare programmes, did not lose six seats after the 2001 census.

Tamil Nadu has been allotted 39 seats in the Lok Sabha.

The resolution, moved by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Saturday last, was adopted after the provision stipulating a timeframe of 50 years for retaining the number of seats allotted to each state, was deleted following an amendment proposed by G Palaniswamy (CPI) and L Santhanam (AIFB).

Winding up the debate on the resolution, Karunanidhi said if the number of seats allotted to each state was decided by population alone, Tamil Nadu's representation in the Lok Sabha would go down, as it had a low annual rate of population growth as against some northern states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

He said Tamil Nadu had a low population growth rate of 1.63 per cent during 1971-81. This came further down to 1.39 per cent during 1981-91. This can be compared with the figures for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which were 2.87 per cent and 2.27 per cent during 1971-81 and 2.47 per cent and 2.37 per cent during 1981-91, he added.

"The threat of reduction of Lok Sabha seats is the reward for the vigorous implementation of the family welfare programme," he said, pointing out that the state had lost one Lok Sabha seat in 1979 when the decimal figures were rounded off during calculation and two seats in the 1960s.

He said he had written to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, Union Home Minister L K Advani and the Union cabinet secretary on February 15 in this regard.

UNI

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