TRS MP B.Vinod Kumar has complained to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi that the voting value of MLAs from Andhra Pradesh was higher compared to their counterparts from Telangana for the election of the President on July 17.
In a letter to Mr. Zaidi, Mr. Vinod Kumar said the value of vote of MLAs from Andhra Pradesh was fixed at 159 while that of those from Telangana at 132 based on the population census of 1971.
The census of 1971 which took place more than four decades ago does not do justice to the changed scenario following creation of Telangana and Andhra Pradeshin 2014. The very metric on which the division of population figures of 1971 took place between the two States seemed unscientific.
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He also said the population figures of Telangana were boosted considerably due to migration from Andhra Pradesh, particularly in and around the capital city of Hyderabad over the years.
The Election Commission should have suitably amended Article 55 (2) of the Constitution to ensure that States like Telangana were not disadvantaged in playing their part in India’s federal politics. If that did not happen, the population of undivided AP as per 1971 census should have been equally divided to ensure a fair and scientific method of arriving at vote value of MLAs, at least till the latest population figures of both States were factored in. That would have ensured that the vote value of each MLA remained equal.