AUTHOR: S. ROSHINI SRI, SASTRA DEEMED UNIVERSITY, THANJAVUR, TAMIL NADU

Delimitation is the practice of redrawing or redistricting boundaries of constituencies based on the census to ensure equal and fair representation and India is a country which has the ideology of one person, one vote, one value. But the topic of delimitation has always been caught up with a lot of controversies and out of which one is gerrymandering. The suspension of the delimitation process for nearly 24 years has created an unequal representation and redistricting constituencies again in 2026 might result in political intervention and Gerrymandering. But there are 2 possibilities surrounding the delimitation, the government would either extend the period of suspension or may conduct a redistricting process. 

Gerrymandering is a process of redrawing boundaries in such a way that is advantageous to one political party and such an activity or term is not new to India though it was first discovered in America. Gerrymandering was said to have happened in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, and some other states in India.

To sort out this issue, there are a lot of methods and ways in which this could be prevented and one of which is the use of the GIS system to create maps and for redistricting boundaries. This is a fast and cost – effective process. It is necessary to protect democratic principles in a democratic country and this article deals with the same.

Key words:  1) Delimitation     2) Population Parity    3) Gerrymandering    4) de facto disenfranchisement    5) Geographic Information System    6) Democratic fairness   

It is believed that a ‘larger population fosters greater electoral democracy’ for various reasons, such as diversity of opinions, higher voter turnout, checks and balances, and an increase in the accountability of institutions. And therefore, when population Therefore, as the population expands delimitation comes into play guaranteeing fair representation and equal value of votes. “Delimitation is an exercise referred to as a method of fixing or redrawing the electoral boundaries to bring parity between the size of the territory and the size of the population.” It upholds the fundamental principle of ‘one person, one vote, one value,’ meaning that no one person’s vote will have a greater weight than another. 

The process of defining the area and nature of such constituencies is important for the following reasons: Firstly, it decides the primary units of area and population to be represented. Secondly, the nature of such units determines, in its turn, the comparative influence and effectiveness of different parties, and thirdly, it alters the relationship between democracy and the size of territory.    

Delimitation has the ability to create permanent electoral majority via the route of de facto disenfranchisement i.e., indirect, or practical exclusion of individuals or groups from exercising their voting rights even though they are legally entitled to vote and this poses a menace for democracy. This article examines the historical background of delimitation and gerrymandering in India.    

It is usual for India to experience uneven growth of population across regions and administrative units. And at present different parts of our country are either stagnant or passing through different stages of demographic transition. Forestalling that the uneven patterns of population growth might disrupt the principle of population parity, the makers of the Indian Constitution provided for a periodic readjustment of constituency boundaries. As per which according to Articles 82 and 170 (2) of the Constitution, a delimitation should occur every 10 years in sync with a decennial population census.

According to article 82 of Indian constitution - Readjustment after each census. —

“Upon the completion of each census, the allocation of seats in the House of the People to the States and the division of each State into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority and in such manner as Parliament may by law determine: 

Provided that such readjustment shall not affect represent representation in the House of the People until the dissolution of the then existing House”: 

Article 170(2) – “For the purposes of clause (1), each State shall be divided into territorial constituencies in such manner that the ratio between the population of each constituency and the number of seats allotted to it shall, so far as practicable, be the same throughout the State.”

“For the first general election of post-Independence India, constituencies were demarcated by the ground work being done by the Election Commission of India. As the exercise was found to be uptight with procedural inadequacies, the Election Commission advised the union government to set up an independent commission for future delimitations. Following this, the Delimitation Commission Act, 1952 was enacted.

The first delimitation commission redrew electoral boundaries based on the population figures of the 1951 census. The second delimitation commission was set up in 1962, and it redrew electoral boundaries and redistributed seats based on the 1961 census. The third delimitation commission was constituted in 1972, which prepared a delimitation plan based on the 1971 census. This was interrupted in 1976 during the governance of late prime minister Indira Gandhi by the 42nd constitutional amendment act, 1976. This amendment inserted a provision to Article 82. The amendment froze the population figure to that of the 1971 census and deferred further delimitation as well as reallocation of seats amongst the states until 2000.”

The article got reframed as, 

                      Article 82 – the new proviso added : “ Provided further that such readjustment shall take effect from such date as the President may, by order, specify and until such readjustment takes effect, any election to the House may be held on the basis of the territorial constituencies existing before such readjustment:”

And later again in 2002, a fourth delimitation commission was set up which merely adjusted the boundaries without making changes in the number of seats. Moreover, in the same year, the parliament through 84^th constitutional amendment act, 2001 rescheduled the next delimitation process to 2026.

The article got reframed as,

Article 82 – “Provided also that until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 6 [2026] have been published, it shall not be necessary to readjust 

1. the allocation of seats in the House of the People to the States as readjusted on the basis of the 1971 census; and 

2. the division of each State into territorial constituencies as may be readjusted on the basis of the [2001] census.”

 Later in 2020, a new commission was established to redraw constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.

The suspension of the delimitation process for 24 years has brought two major challenges for the government. First, there are now significant population imbalances across constituencies  both within individual states and across the country. Second, this could result in some states being either overrepresented or underrepresented in Parliament.

These population disparities appear on two fronts. Urban constituencies have expanded rapidly due to migration from rural areas, creating a gap between rural and urban representation. At the same time, states in northern India have experienced faster population growth compared to their southern counterparts. This is largely because family planning programs were less effective in the north, while southern states implemented them more strictly.

Southern leaders argue that by successfully controlling their population growth  as encouraged by central policy their states are now facing a political penalty. The postponement of delimitation has been justified partly due to the absence of true fiscal federalism. Although India functions as a federal union, the wealthier southern states contribute a larger share to central revenues. However, funds are redistributed primarily based on population and need, meaning northern states receive more support despite contributing less.

If constituencies were to be redrawn today, based on current population data, northern states would gain even more seats and therefore, more power. This would affect both political influence and the distribution of central funds. As a result, southern states may find themselves disadvantaged, despite their stronger performance in terms of per capita income and development outcomes. To avoid this imbalance, a freeze on delimitation was introduced in 2001 and extended until 2026. In essence, many southern leaders oppose a fresh delimitation exercise because they fear it would reduce their political influence and financial benefits from the Centre.

           The main problem lingering with delimitation is Gerrymandering and it is the practice of manipulating boundaries of political constituencies so as to provide one party with an advantage over another.  This method can distort democratic fairness by giving a party more electoral advantage than their actual support base warrants. This can be said as de facto disenfranchisement i.e., indirect, or practical exclusion of individuals or groups from exercising their voting rights.

There are 2 types of gerrymandering and those are “partisan gerrymandering through which the political party aims to attract ballots over the rival party while the other is Racial gerrymandering through which it seeks to obtain political gains for one’s own race.”

And the way gerrymandering is done can be classified into 2 basic techniques which are referred to as ‘Cracking’ and ‘Packing’. “‘Cracking’ refers to the splitting of voters belonging to a particular demographic or party affiliation in multiple districts to diminish their control and influence in each district. ‘Packing’ refers to concentrating the bulk of the opposing party’s voters into a few districts where the opposing party has a stronger hold.”  This ensures that through ousting those few seats the political party can gain advantage of more votes though their overall influence in the wider region is minimized. Usually, politicians create cracked districts rather than packed ones to maximize their electoral gains. And this undermines the democratic principle. 

“An article in Forbes India where it has mentioned that there are some constituencies that has been gerrymandered and it gave geometrical explanation as to how the gerrymander can be proved. Theoretically, barring national and state boundaries, and coastlines, maps of parliamentary and assembly constituencies should be convex polygons. Convex polygons are polygons that don’t have weird appendages sticking out. And according to it, the main reason constituencies in India don’t form well-formed figures is due to the concept called “Gerrymandering”. It has found that some or most of the constituencies have some component or the other jutting out, even when there’s no inter-state border or coastline involved. Often if there exist any interstate border or a coastal line or any such place which cannot separated or considered alone to exist as a constituency it would be included with other nearby constituency even and at that time it looks like appendages jutting out and a suspicion of gerrymandering doesn’t arise when there exist reasons for its inclusion. But as highlighted by the Forbes in the constituency Padmanabhanagar in South Bangalore (refer image) that looks like a hen doing ballet with some parts jutting out unnecessarily is said to have gerrymandered for some political interest or the other wanting lines drawn in a certain way to aid electoral arithmetic.”

“Many have defended this by stating that the shape of the constituencies highlighted may be unusual, but they are not gerrymandered because they do not inherently favor any political party, or it is unlikely to be the case, because the boundaries were drawn by the Delimitation Commission”. There is no benefit for any party per se, because the boundaries have been drawn by a Delimitation Commission and not a political body like a legislature. But the fact that the commission is set by the parliament is being avoided. They also argue that the weird shapes of the (refer the image) are due to the need of the commission to include Scheduled tribes (ST) and Scheduled castes (SC) people as much as possible in a constituency. The Delimitation Act, 2002, under Section 9, states that “the delimitation commission is required to include the maximum amount of population of Scheduled Castes or Tribes within that constituency” which is why in few areas Mavelikkara (Kerala) and Nabarangpur (Orissa) were demarcated weirdly.

But this has not went unchallenged before courts and there has been huge demand for judicial review of delimitation decisions in cases like Haji Abdul Gani khan v. Union of India, and Kishorchandra Chhanganlal Rathod v. Union of India but no solutions were found and no review done on the delimitation as article 329(a) states that 

“Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the validity of any law relating to the delimitation of constituencies or the allotment of seats to such constituencies, made or purporting to be made under article 327 or article 328, shall not be called in question in any court;”

This made it impossible to bring the delimitation decisions under judicial scrutiny.

Geographic Information System technology is at present Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is reshaping the governance in India, and it is believed that it has the capability to do unimaginable stuff. “Digital India aims to establish end to end geo-spatial electronics delivery systems as part of Mission Mode Projects in e-Governance domain and envisages ‘National GIS Mission’ as core foundation of location-based Electronic Delivery of Services for Planning & Governance.”

And this has been used quite effectively in India under various departments and one of the key steps that has been taken was to transform the National Informatics Centre’s GIS platform which was once identified as NICMAPS into Bharat Maps. Bharat maps is a powerful, multi- scale, multi- resolution system which is equipped with layered maps and satellite imagery that meets global geospatial standards. This system is not just a collection of maps; it’s a live, intelligent tool being used across a wide range of fields from agriculture and healthcare to telecommunications, industry, environmental management, and even disaster response. Government departments, both at the Centre and in the states, are increasingly banking on it for real-time, accurate data to make decisions that directly affect people’s lives. Also, it has a multilayer GIS framework which has linkage to attribute data like census which indirectly connects it to the process of redistricting.  

The suspension of redistricting process and gerrymandering in India has made people criticize the delimitation process for being vulnerable to political interference and this is where GIS can make a difference. As we know, GIS is a system that can capture, manage and analyse layers of geographical and demographic data, enabling the creation of accurate, interactive, and even 3D electoral maps. And this sanctions planners and officials to mark both visible features like rivers and roads and invisible ones like constituency borders which in turn enables decision-makers to accurately count and organize the population within each area, making scope for equal representation and transparency in the redistricting process.

As each coin has two sides, one of the main challenges in this system is the availability of error-free georeferenced data called ‘base maps’ which must include natural features, terrain, and physical geography to ensure that boundaries are drawn with precision. When politicians and bureaucrats use GIS tools to visualize clusters of voters or administrative boundaries, it opens up the risk of manipulation. But on the flip side, these same tools, if placed in the hands of independent bodies, researchers, and civil society, can be used to expose and even prevent gerrymandering. In fact, mathematicians are now developing sophisticated algorithms to detect biased patterns in maps, making it possible to generate hundreds of boundary plans that are objective and free from political influence.

The government has already indirectly gestured its greater commitment in this GIS system with the National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022, which aims to create high-resolution topographic maps by 2030. In the 2025- 2026 union budget, Government of India has allocated ₹100 crore for the National Geospatial Mission. This strategic investment highlights the government’s focus on harnessing geospatial technology for economic growth, governance, and sustainable development. And if the Delimitation Commission uses the same system i.e., GIS and computer-assisted boundary drawing then the entire process of redistricting could become faster, cost-effective, and fair. It would no longer be cloaked in opacity but opened up to public scrutiny and participation. And it is more important to put these technologies in the hands of people rather than giving it to the politicians to make it a more democratic one. 

Delimitation is a perpetually controversial process which is  surrounded by issues such as uncertainty, corruption, and inefficiency. Transparency, judiciousness, and fairness in this process can only be ensured when all 3 institutions- legislation, executive and judiciary work collaborate straightforwardly under a framework of checks and balances. The government must not exploit or misuse the power of delimitation for political gain or advantage. A transparent, fair, and inclusive delimitation process is critical for preserving the integrity of democracy and ensuring equitable representation for all regions and communities. And delimitation, when misused, redraws not just maps but the future of a democracy. Ensuring its fairness is not a matter of process, but of principle.

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2. India Const. art. 82 & art. 170(2).

3. India Const. art. 82, amended by The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976.

4. India Const. art. 82, amended by The Constitution (Eighty-fourth Amendment) Act, 2001.

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6. Ananth Krishna, The Integrity of Politics: Does Gerrymandering Exist in India?, Swarajya Magazine (Apr. 18, 2019), https://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-integrity-of-politics-does-gerrymandering-exist-in-india (last visited July 4, 2025).

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10. Delimitation Act, 2002, § 9, No. 33, Acts of Parliament, 2002 (India).

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