The ruling party at the Centre does not want itself painted as anti-southern party

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has strongly raised the issue of discrimination against southern States in the parameters chosen by the 15th Finance Commission. With Kerala Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac calling a meeting of Finance Ministers of those States to discuss the issue, this making of a common cause by governments run by Opposition parties has rung alarm bells in the BJP, which sees itself painted as an anti-southern party in this scene.

Meeting lined up

Senior BJP leaders said the party would seek a meeting with the Chairman of the Finance Commission, N.K. Singh, in the next few days to sort out the issues. “The use of the 2011 census data rather than 1971 census has raised the issue that the States which have followed progressive policies on population and have reached replacement levels of population growth rates, will be punished in the resource allocation. This will affect not just the southern States but also Gujarat and Odisha. If the 15th Finance Commission wants to retain the 2011 census as a baseline, then it must rejig the parameters with regard to population policy and give more weight to the States that follow progressive population control policies,” a senior party office-bearer said.

While at the moment no one anticipates strong emotions being roused by the issue, there is a fear that it has all the potential to snowball into a controversy, with the BJP, the ruling party at the Centre, being painted an anti-south Indian party. “Even during delimitation, such fears were raised, that low population States would be punished for progressive policies by reduction of Lok Sabha seats,” a source said.

“It’s the Karnataka polls now, later it’s Andhra Pradesh where N. Chandrababu Naidu is pushing us into a corner and of course Tamil Nadu,” said the source.

Population norm

Gopal Krishna Agarwal, BJP spokesperson on economic issues, told The Hindu that while fears of discrimination between the north and the south were being raised, everyone needed to take a calmer look at the terms of references of the Finance Commission. “Whatever the terms of references, population has always been an important criterion for allocation of resources. The census baseline has been changed for this commission, but none of the other parameters including rewarding good governance have been changed, in that, the concerns of the south should be taken care of. In any case, the commission has asked for public comments on these issues and stakeholders should respond there,” he said.