Gerrymandering is the act of redrawing the boundaries of political constituencies in a way that gives the ruling party a clear advantage over its rivals. The term, which originated in the United States, entered mainstream political discourse in India last week when the Modi government convened a special session of Parliament to push for early delimitation in the name of implementing women’s reservation.
The bills were defeated. But the threat of gerrymandering is real, as we know from the case of Assam.
The state saw a delimitation exercise in 2023 which altered political boundaries in a way that led to absurd outcomes: one panchayat, for instance, is now represented by two MPs and three MLAs.
The larger impact was that Muslim representation in the state shrunk with the Bharatiya Janata Party acquiring a permanent edge over its rivals.
In this episode of True Story, Scroll’s Executive Editor Supriya Sharma and reporter Rokibuz Zaman pore over constituency maps in Assam to explain what changed and how.
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