There is a provision in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act (Section 26) that divided the combined AP to enhance the number of seats in both the Assemblies, though there won’t be any change in the number of Lok Sabha seats. As per the existing laws, the next delimitation of Lok Sabha seats is possible only after 2026, based on the next census data.
The process of increasing the strength of the Assembly seats has been set in motion after Union I&B Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu secured the nod of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, sources close to the minister told The Sunday Guardian. A draft Bill amending the Constitution to this effect would come up before the Union Cabinet on 29 March.
Once the Cabinet clears the draft Bill, it would be introduced in Parliament during the current Budget session that concludes by 12 April. Most likely, the Bill would be passed without delay as all political parties from these states are for it. The increase would be effective only from 2019 elections and would neither impact the coming Presidential elections nor change the number of Rajya Sabha seats.
The issue came up before Lok Sabha this Wednesday when Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj G. Ahir told TRS MP K. Prabhakar Reddy that there was no proposal before the Centre to increase the number of seats in Telangana and AP assemblies and that the Article 170 (3) of the Constitution states that next delimitation of Parliament seats was possible only after 2016 based on the census after that.
There was a flaw in the AP Reorganization Act’s Section 26, which states that there shall be an increase in the number of seats in the Assemblies of the two states with a rider: “Subject to the provisions contained in the Article 170 of the Constitution.” However, Article 170 doesn’t allow any delimitation of seats as of now, so Ahir ruled out any increase in the Assembly seats.
As already, both the Chief Ministers—K. Chandrasekhar Rao (Telangana) and N. Chandrababu Naidu (AP)—had written to the Centre seeking an increase in the seats as per the promise made by Act, the Centre has now decided to amend Section 26, replacing the words “Subject to provisions” with “Notwithstanding the provisions”, sources explained.
This is a simple amendment and doesn’t require the support of 2/3 majority in Parliament or ratification by half of the state Assemblies in the country. The combined Andhra Pradesh Assembly had 294 seats and post bifurcation, the number is divided into 119 and 175. The reduced number of seats has created problems like small-sized Cabinets and fewer seats in Legislative Councils.
A similar situation had arisen when Uttar Pradesh was divided to create Uttarakhand, which got only 21 Assembly seats. However, as it was not possible to form an Assembly with such a small number of MLAs, the law was amended and Uttarakhand was allotted 70 Assembly seats. The same criterion is now being applied to the two Telugu states.
With the increase, Telangana gets 34 more MLAs at the rate of two MLAs for each of the 17 Lok Sabha seats, while AP gets 50 more MLAs at the rate of two MLAs for each of the 25 Lok Sabha seats. The increase in the Assembly seats will also ensure more reserved seats for SCs/STs, the sources said. The strength of the Legislative Councils, too, will suitably increased.
There is a political connotation to the demand for increase in the Assembly seats as the ruling parties in the two states had encouraged defections and admitted several opposition MLAs with the promise that they would be given tickets in the next elections. But the candidates who lost the last election were unhappy and this increase of seats would accommodate them all.
Hansraj Ahir’s statement in Lok Sabha this week has dampened the spirits of the Chief Ministers. However, the initiative taken by Venkaiah Naidu has rekindled their hope of enhanced strength of Assemblies.