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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Why language-based states make delimitation a political football

Increasing parliamentary seats for women doesn’t erode state powers; federalism is about the distribution of power, not just MP counts.

There is much talk of federalism and how the move to increase seats in parliament to give women 33 percent of the seats is somehow a threat to federalism.

Federalism is primarily about how powers are distributed (largely) between three levels of government, Central, state and local bodies. They actually have nothing to do with which state gets to sent how many MPs to parliament. Yes, one can agree that relative changes in the number of seats between states will increase or reduce the voting powers of those states on central legislation. But this does not in any way reduce the already devolved powers of states.

Let us note a few cases where federal powers were actually impacted severely, but very few states protested. The goods and services tax (GST) impacted the ability of states to raise or lower indirect taxes, but most of them agreed to let go on the assumption that their revenues would go up. But no one spoke up for local bodies, who now have to........

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