New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor Friday termed the proposed delimitation process as “political demonetization” and criticized the Center for linking the implementation of women’s reservation to the expansion of Parliament and redefinition of constituencies based on census.Participating in the debate in the Lok Sabha on three bills related to amendment of the Women’s Reservation Act and setting up of the Delimitation Commission, Tharoor said the government has unnecessarily linked the widely supported reform to a highly contentious political process.Tharoor said, “Delimitation will become political demonetisation. Don’t do that.”She said there was almost unanimous political support across parties for women’s reservation and argued that the measure should be implemented immediately without relying on delimitations.He said, “Today we stand at the threshold where there is almost unanimous political consensus in favor of women’s reservation. Every major party realizes that the time of symbolism is over and the era of mass participation must begin and yet I find myself deeply troubled by the legislative exercise before us.”Tharoor mentioned the Prime Minister Narendra ModiComments supported women’s representation, but said the proposal was burdened with unnecessary conditions.He asked, “The Prime Minister says he has brought the gift of justice ‘Nari Shakti’, but he has wrapped it in barbed wire, linking the implementation of women’s reservation to the expansion of Parliament, 2011 census data and the delimitation process… Why should we confuse a moral imperative with a demographic sphere?”She said that women’s reservation is ready to be implemented on the basis of existing parliamentary strength and there is no need to wait for future reorganization of constituencies.“Women’s reservation is ripe for the harvest and should be implemented immediately on the basis of existing parliamentary strength,” she said.Warning of wider political implications of redrawing of constituencies, Tharoor said delimitation is not just an administrative process but a change in the balance of political power.“Delimitation is not just a bureaucratic rearrangement of maps, it is a profound shift in political power that is intended to…any The delimitation process is fraught with complexities that can tear apart the fabric of our federalism,” he said.He also criticized the speed with which the government was pushing the legislation and compared it to the hasty move of demonetisation.He said, “You have proposed delimitation with such haste, the same haste that you showed on demonetisation. Unfortunately, we all know how much loss this caused to the country. Delimitation will become political demonetization. Don’t do that,” Tharoor said.Tharoor said the opposition supports the principle of women’s reservation but believes it should not be made dependent on the future delimitation process. She called for wide-ranging discussions with all political parties, saying that both women’s representation and delimitation had a significant impact on India’s electoral structure and federal balance.The debate took place after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, aimed at amending the women’s quota law, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday following a division of votes.Two additional general bills, the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territory Laws (Amendment) Bill, were also introduced to facilitate the implementation of the proposed amended women’s quota law in the Union Territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.

In Bengal, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has sparked intense political controversy, with allegations that a large number of people are at risk of their names being removed from the electoral rolls. But in the Tibetan settlement of Kalimpong, many residents remember the experience of voter verification very differently – as a process that validates settled communities rather than excludes them.In this mountainous town, where Tibetans have lived for decades for generations, residents and settlement officials say investigations have so far revealed only a small number of anomalies. Many argue that when such exercises are done carefully and with reference to past records, they can confirm legitimate voters rather than disenfranchise them.In a small shop at 10th Mile, 72-year-old Khamji Bhutia dismissed apprehensions about the practice. He said, “We have no problem with SIR. We were born here.”That sense of confidence comes from a long local history. After China’s occupation of Tibet in 1959, not all Tibetans came to Kalimpong. Some families had already settled in the city when Kalimpong was an important trading centre. Traders traveled through Nathu La and Jelep La carrying wool, salt, borax and livestock; Some stayed, opened businesses and built homes.“I came many years before China took over Tibet,” said Jampel Kaldhen, 82, who came to Kalimpong in 1954 when he was 12. He said that language was not a barrier for him. “My third language was Sanskrit. I could communicate easily in Hindi.”Others came later, fleeing repression and rebuilding their lives in India. Many people found work as laborers before moving into small trades and businesses.“We all worked as labourers. We used to go to build roads in the lava, all men and women… we all worked. We built that road,” said Namdol Bhuta, 78, referring to the route to the tourist spot in Kalimpong district.For many here, that history shapes the way they view election verification. Inclusion of names in the voter list is not just a matter of documentation; It is a symbol of residence, labor and belonging built over decades.Residents and local officials say most Tibetans in Kalimpong already have documented continuity of residence. According to people familiar with the settlement, the Tibetan population in the area is estimated to be around 1,928. They say the current questions largely reflect a generational divide: many elderly Tibetans still hold refugee certificates, while younger members of the community, especially those born in India, are more likely to have Aadhaar cards and voter ID cards.“Those who remain with refugee certificates are often deeply attached to their Tibetan identity and prefer not to move away from it,” said Tenzing Bhutia, a resident of Kalimpong.Tashi Bhutia, a retired teacher of St. Augustine’s School, said his grandfather was born in Darjeeling. His father was later sent to Tibet to become a monk and returned years later. He emphasized that the community cannot be viewed through a refugee narrative. He said, “Not all Tibetans here fled Tibet after 1959. Some were born here. Some had been living here for generations.”Local Tibetan settlement official Tseten said that most Tibetans in Kalimpong had obtained documents before 2000, and had participated in earlier elections, including 2002. This has helped during the current revision as many names can be checked from the old voter list, he said.“We don’t have a lot of cases in the SIR, just a few cases. Most have their own documents,” Tseten said. “I don’t think there are deleted cases.”The Kalimpong experience does not address the larger political argument over SIR in Bengal. But this points to a difference: verification practices do not need to automatically become a means of exclusion. Where authorities rely on old records, documentary continuity and local history, settled communities are less likely to be treated as suspicious.

Amid the oft-repeated debate over whether northern states could benefit from future Lok Sabha expansion at the expense of the South, the historical record tells a more complex story. Between 1951 and 1977, when parliamentary seats were periodically reallocated following the census exercise, the share of Lok Sabha seats in both the Hindi belt and the southern states saw a decline. But the Hindi belt’s share fell much more – 3.1 percentage points, while the South’s declined by 1.2 points.The main reason was not the rise of the South over the North or vice versa, but the increased representation of the Union Territories and the increasing share of the Western and Eastern States. The comparison also needs to be read carefully: the map of India looked very different in 1951, before the linguistic reorganization of states. By 1956, the states were more or less in their present form, but at that time many union territories had little or no representation in the Lok Sabha.

Overall, the data shows that changes in parliamentary representation were shaped not only by the North-South balance, but also by state reorganisation, UT representation and the evolving federal map of India.