Census next year, then delimitation of seats, know the plan of Modi government before 2029!

New Delhi: During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, many opposition parties including Congress had raised the issue of caste census. The Congress-led India alliance had promised that caste census would be conducted if their government comes to power. Now the Modi government at the Center has taken an important decision on this. The government is not going to conduct caste census but the much awaited census next year. The target is to complete it by 2026. According to sources, suggestions are being sought on whether caste counting should be included in this process or not. After the census, the government will begin the process of delimitation to redraw the constituencies. Sources said that after this women’s reservation will be implemented. Both these processes are related to census.

In 2002, the then NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had postponed the delimitation for 25 years through the 84th Amendment. At that time it was said that this would be done only after the relevant data of the first census after 2026 was available. This meant that the delimitation would be done after the 2031 census.

Government’s special preparation on census and delimitation

However, according to sources, the government is now planning to start the delimitation process by 2027 and finish it within a year. So that the next Lok Sabha elections i.e. 2029 can be held after the implementation of the Delimitation and Women’s Reservation Bill. Recently, the tenure of Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan was extended beyond this December till August 2026. However, there is a demand from various sections that caste census should be included in the census.

What did the Sangh say on caste census?

RSS has also supported the idea of ​​caste census. The union said getting the numbers right is a well-established practice. However, a source said there is no clarity on how to do this. Suggestions include adding the OBC category to the existing census of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and religion, including surveys of sub-categories in the General, SC-ST categories. Delimitation will have its own problems, as southern states are concerned about the impact on their political stake in Parliament. This is because the North will have a disproportionate number of seats due to the more populous states.

This issue is before the governments of the South regarding delimitation

Various state governments in the South have publicly raised this concern. It also includes the name of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and NDA’s main ally TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu. he/she mentioned the impact of population on the people of the state and also encouraged them to have more children. Government sources on this matter said that they are aware of this concern and any measure which could harm the southern states will be avoided.

Understand what is the attitude of the Center on the whole matter.

A senior Union Minister said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that the delimitation process should not create any division between North and South. Maybe fixing or changing the population-area formula might help. There will be discussion with all stakeholders and consensus will be reached. The amendments required for the delimitation process include Article 81 (which defines the composition of the Lok Sabha), Article 170 (composition of the Legislative Assemblies), Article 82, Article 55 (which deals with the Presidential election process and the value of each vote in the Electoral College. The decision is taken on the basis of population), including changes to Articles 330 and 332 (covering reservation of seats for the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies respectively).