The all-important Southern Zonal meeting concluded and a major political development has come out of it. In the meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay and Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar urged the Centre to reconsider its Delimitation proposal. However, Congress ally and Keralam Chief Minister VD Satheesan did not address the matter in his speech. The Karnataka CM framed the concern as something which is collectively shared by all Southern states in India. He argued that the South had been doing what the Union Government asked from it, mentioning population control as a core argument. He said that following the Union Government's instructions "with discipline and success" should not lead to the states being punished. Even though he welcomed the Centre's assurance that no southern state would lose seats, he affirmed that the South's proportional voice in Parliament must be protected too. "Representation is not only about numbers. It is about weight, and about voice," he said. He even moved a concrete proposal, urging the huddle to pass a resolution freezing Lok Sabha seats at the current number, and called for implementation of the women's quota bill at that fixed number in Parliament. In a united cry, he said, "I am confident that all the Chief Ministers here will support me in what I say... I call upon my fellow Chief Ministers to stand together behind our shared stand. Vijay, in his speech, gave delimitation a separation section itself. He titled that portion, "Safeguarding Southern Representation." Echoing Shivakumar's argument, Vijay stated that population control was a national goal set for the South, and it's success should not cost its states the political power. He said, "States should not be penalised for achieving national goals." Referring to the Centre's earlier assurances, Vijay urged the Union Government to provide a clear legislative guarantee that "no state would suffer a reduction in percentage of representation in Parliament on account of its success in population stabilisation." However, peculiarly enough, Shivakumar and Vijay's Congress ally VD Satheesan did not address delimitation in his entire speech. As a majority of southern states continue to oppose the delimitation proposal, voices in the opposition voices ramp up the rhetoric of "representation over numbers." Delimitation is the process of redrawing parliamentary and assembly constituencies to reflect population changes. The idea is to ensure that each constituency has roughly the same number of people living in it. In other words, delimitation is directly linked to size. States with larger populations get more representatives in parliament than States with smaller populations. Delimitation has taken place in India four times - 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002. Until 1976, after every Census, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and State Assembly seats were redistributed across the country. However, during the 1976 emergency, Indira Gandhi's government froze seat allocation to ensure that states with successful family planning policies did not lose representation. This decision was formalised through the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, which halted any change in the number of Parliamentary and Assembly seats until after the 2001 Census. After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Centre would undertake two major tasks - the national census and the delimitation exercise.