Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday told the Tamil Nadu assembly that he would lead a delegation of MPs from the state to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for a freeze on delimitation, as decided at the Joint-Action Committee (JAC) meeting of seven states.
Informing the House on the steps taken by the JAC on Saturday on the issue of delimitation, Stalin said, “For fair delimitation, an all-party delegation of MPs will meet the prime minister shortly. The date will be announced soon. We will press the prime minister to declare in Parliament that delimitation will be frozen for another 30 years.”
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“The initiative taken by Tamil Nadu has created an impact across the country. Delimitation, if carried out, should not penalise states which had carried out welfare programmes and population control effectively. The increase in seats for north Indian states should not be disproportionate to the southern states,” he said and expressed his heartfelt gratitude to opposition AIADMK and other parties which extended support to oppose the present population-based delimitation.
Barring the BJP, more than 50 registered political parties took part in the all-party meeting that Stalin had convened to arrive at a consensus on Tamil Nadu’s stand on delimitation. The all-party meeting decided to garner support of Southern states and other states which would be affected if population is taken as the sole criteria for delimitation.
The JAC meeting on Saturday witnessed the coming together of seven states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Punjab. Besides the Chief ministers of Kerala Telangana and Punjab, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had participated in the meet, giving the much-needed political heft.
