CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday burnt a copy of the proposed delimitation Bill and announced a series of protests across Tamil Nadu against the Union government’s move.
The DMK has called for demonstrations at corporation, city, town, union, ward and booth levels, where party cadres will burn copies of the Bill around 11 am. The party has also urged the public to hoist black flags at homes and commercial buildings for three days from April 16.
In a post on X, Stalin said the protest would spread across the State and criticised the BJP, stating that resistance from Tamil Nadu would once again make its impact felt.
Party sources said alliance partners have also extended support to the DMK’s stand against delimitation. The issue has become a key focus of Stalin’s election campaign in recent days.
The Chief Minister said the proposed delimitation would affect Tamil Nadu and reiterated his opposition to the move.
Earlier on Wednesday, Stalin took out a march as part of his campaign and responded to remarks by AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on women’s reservation.
Stalin said the issue at hand was delimitation and not women’s reservation. He added that reservation for women in local bodies had been implemented during the tenure of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and later increased to 50 per cent.
India is set for a major redraw of its political map, with the Union government proposing to increase Lok Sabha seats from 543 to up to 850 to operationalise women’s reservation ahead of the 2029 polls.
The Centre on Wednesday (April 15) unveiled three Bills, including a Constitution amendment Bill requiring a two-thirds majority and a Delimitation Bill, to be taken up during a special Parliament session from April 16 to 18.
The exercise will redraw constituencies and reallocate seats in Parliament and state and Union Territory assemblies to enable 33% reservation for women, based on the 2011 Census, as the upcoming Census will take a year to complete.
The delimitation exercise, mandated to reflect population changes, has been frozen since 1971 over concerns about uneven population growth across states.
Southern states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana have been vehemently opposing population-based delimitation, arguing it would disproportionately benefit northern states and penalise those that have controlled population growth, and have called for extending the freeze on seat redistribution for 25 years.