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The Rediff Election Special/ K C Sivaramakrishnan

Disparity stands out as a prominent feature

Time for Change

Soon after, the Constitution 42^nd Amendment of 1976 brought about a far-reaching change. By a proviso to Article 81(3) as well as Article 170(s), the amendment froze the population figure to that of the 1971 Census and deferred further delimitation as well as allocation of seats among the states until after the census scheduled for the year 2001. This was mainly in response to fears expressed by some states, particularly the southern states, which felt that if as a result of successful population planning measures their overall population growth became less in comparison to others, they might lose some of their representation in the Lok Sabha.

Did the 42^nd Amendment serve its purpose? Partly it did. The growth of Tamil Nadu's population went down to 15 per cent in the period 1981 to 1991 compared to 17 per cent in the previous decade. In the case of Kerala, the change was from 19 per cent to 14 per cent and in the case of Karnataka, it was 21 per cent as compared to 26 per cent in the previous decade. However, the growth rate went up by about one percentage point in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

If a reallocation of seats is made on the basis of the 1991 Census, keeping the total number of seats available to the 15 major states as the same, i e, 507, Tamil Nadu will lose four seats, Kerala two and Orissa one. Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan would have gained two more seats each while Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal would have received one extra seat each.

This has not happened, thanks to the freeze on delimitation. However, the price paid for this freeze has been the disproportionately high size of the electorate in several constituencies particularly in the urban areas. Some differences in the electorate size between rural and urban constituencies is understandable and is universal because of the usually higher density of population in urban areas. However, the difference should not be of such an order as to render the overriding principle of equality of suffrage, meaningless.

Furthermore, disparity is not limited to urban and non-urban constituencies and in some cases has occurred among different urban constituencies as well, within the same state. In adjoining areas such disparity is particularly glaring and unacceptable.

Magnitude of disparities

Delhi, the capital of the nation brings out the gross disparity vividly. The total electorate in Delhi is now 80.58 lakhs as compared to 60.73 lakhs in 1991. Out of the seven Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi, Outer Delhi's electorate is 28.2 lakhs and East Delhi 22.2 lakhs compared to Chandni Chowk's 3.6 lakhs, Delhi Sadar 5 lakhs, Karol Bagh 5.43 lakhs and New Delhi 5.05 lakhs.

In the 1996 election 13.81 lakhs votes were polled in Outer Delhi to elect one MP while Chandni Chowk needed only 2.07 lakh votes. In other words the value of one vote in Outer Delhi is about one-seventh of that in Chandni Chowk.

If Delhi is to be regarded as an odd case, let us look at Maharashtra. In the 1996 election the average constituency size within the state was 11.51 lakhs. Out of the state's total of 48 Lok Sabha constituencies, in 10, the electorate size is considerably higher than this average. Thane continues to be the largest constituency in the country with 28.26 lakh voters followed by Mumbai North (21.76 lakhs), Mumbai North-East (19.49 lakhs) and Mumbai North-West (15.14 lakhs).

In all these cases the difference compared to the state average size is more than 30 per cent. Per contra there are 12 constituencies in the state where the size of the electorate is less than 10 lakhs including Mumbai South and Mumbai South Central with less than eight lakh voters each.

Similar examples abound elsewhere in the country such as Secunderabad (16.60 lakh voters) and Siddipet (15.72 lakhs) in Andhra Pradesh, Surat (18.9 lakhs) and Gandhinagar (17.52 lakhs) in Gujarat, Kanakapura (17.25 lakhs) and Bangalore North (15.38 lakhs) in Karnataka, Jaipur (16.56 lakhs) and Bikaner (16.74 lakhs) in Rajasthan, Lucknow (15.38 lakhs) in UP and 15.36 lakhs in Dum Dum in West Bengal and so on, where the electorate size in the constituencies considerably exceeds the state as well as the national averages. Conversely, several other constituencies in the states are well below the state average. Disparity thus stands out as a prominent feature.

Increase in Electorate

Overall population increase, lowering of voting age to 18 as well as intensive revision of electoral rolls have all contributed to increasing the size of the electorate. The total electorate in the country ha gone up from 36.39 crores in 1980 to 49.83 crores in 1991 and to 59.25 crores in 1996. The electorate as a percentage of population has also been rising from 47.97 crores in 1951 to 54.76 in 1984 crores. In 1991 it became 58.8 per cent.

Based on the census department's expert group projections, the country's population may be considered as 91.32 crores as on March 1, 1996. In comparison the electorate of 59.25 crores represents about 64.88 per cent of the total population. This itself is a high figure. Another aspect is that the adult population is the country (18 years of age and above) is estimated to be not more than 54.65 crores. The present electorate exceeds this figure by 4.60 crores.

There is no denying the fact, however, that overall, the increase in the electorate has been conspicuous. The average size of a Lok Sabha constituency in the country as a whole has gone up from 9.49 lakhs in 1991 to 10.87 lakhs in 1996; a conspicuous increase in just five years. If just the 15 major states are considered, the average among them is 11.10 lakhs as compared to 9.75 lakhs in 1991.

As compared to the national average, the state averages are not very different. Excepting Assam where the average size of the constituency is 8.99 lakhs, in most of the states the average electorate size is within 10 per cent plus or minus, compared to the national figure of 11.10 lakhs. Let it be made clear at this stage that all these figures refer to electorate sizes. The Constitution, however, refers to the population-seat ratio and not the size of the electorate.

Since we have published figures only for the 1991 Census and as projections for each state and constituency will be an elaborate exercise, we have taken the electorate size as a broad proxy for population. The conclusion is that between the states the average constituency size is not an issue but, disparity between the constituencies and within the states is very much a problem.

The position is that out of the 15 major states analyzed which have a total of 507 Lok Sabha constituencies, in 208 cases the size of the electorate exceeds the respective state average. As compared to a similar analysis made in 1991 which indicated 150 such cases, the number of 'extra large' constituencies has thus increased. The degree of excess is 10 to 20 per cent in the case of 38 seats, 20 to 30 per cent in 16 seats and more than 30 per cent in 20 seats.

The rate of increase in the size of electorate is another way to compare the various constituencies. For the state as a whole, the average rate of increase from 1991 to 1996 has been 27 per cent in UP, more than 16 per cent in Andhra and MP and as high as 29 per cent in the case of Delhi.

If the position of the 'extra large constituencies' is considered, the rate of increase as compared to the respective state averages is even higher. In 10 constituencies the rate is more than 100 per cent over the respective state rates; in 29 it is between 50 to 100 per cent and in 165 it is 50 per cent or less. This also underscores the fact that in the 'extra large' constituencies the present size, of the electorate as well as the rate of increase, are both significant.

Urban under representation

Reproduced from the Economic and Political Weekly, with their kind permission.

The Rediff Election Specials

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