Three states, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand, celebrated their Silver Jubilee in November 2025, having been created by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 2000. This was the largest reorganisation of states after 1956. This major bifurcation represented a significant departure from creating states on the basis of language as one of the primary distinct factors. These states were created as there was a long-standing demand of people of those regions, because they felt that their region had been neglected and no significant development had taken place. Such a demand also gave rise to Telangana in the year 2014, which came into existence after bifurcating Andhra Pradesh.
These new states created optimism among residents of Bundelkhand, Coorg, Purvanchal and Vidarbha. The First State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was established in 1952 under the Chairmanship of Dr. Fazal Ali, with K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Kunzru as its members. The primary task of the commission was to restructure the boundaries of states for better governance. The commission adopted language as the primary principle to form state boundaries. It was in their minds that a linguistic entity would achieve better governance as the citizens would be able to communicate in their mother tongue with their leaders and executives. Later, the State Reorganisation Act was passed in 1956, resulting in the first federal map of India having 14 states and 6 union territories.
At that time, the population of India was around 40.7 crore. Today, we have 28 states and 8 union territories. These states could be created as the Constitution provided flexibility in the creation of new states; hence, the framers of the Constitution did not create any article that could pose an impediment in the creation of a new state, or to change the names of states, unite two or more states or unite any territory with a part of any state. The only condition is that the recommendation of the President is required before the introduction of such a bill in either house of Parliament. Before doing so, the President has to seek the view of the affected state legislature.
The President is neither bound to oblige the State Legislature by accepting the advice nor is the President required to wait endlessly for such advice. Infect the process of creating new states is made easy in the Constitution. Now it is for the central government to realize the long-overdue aspiration of the citizens for the creation of new states. If India wants to march on the road of ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047 and aspire to be a vibrant democracy, then regional aspirations cannot be ignored; they can be better served when the government starts looking inwards on the reasons of uneven development, mass migration, widespread poverty, among others. Unless regional disparities are removed and new states as economic hubs are not created, the road to ‘Viksit Bharat’ appears to be full of roadblocks.
Small states fulfil regional aspirations, voices of the marginalized are heard, it reduces physical and political access between policy makers and citizens, which ensures timely delivery of benefits to the last man. This also reduces administrative gaps and ensures accountability of executives towards their citizens. Chhattisgarh has shown how a neglected tribal region can prosper after getting Statehood. Uttarakhand has also shown significant growth after the formation of SIDCUL (State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited), which has resulted in a higher per-capita income than that of its parent state of Uttar Pradesh.
The Uttar Pradesh Government established BIDA (Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority) in early 2024 for the development of Bundelkhand, but no significant industry has come up in the area to generate jobs for unemployed youth. Mass migration is still taking place to bigger cities for employment and for better living. Although BIDA is still at the foundational phase, it would take about a decade or more for the region to be developed as an industrial hub.
The Uttar Pradesh government would have to take more policy initiatives to attract investments, as the current policies are not yielding the desired outcome. The region contributes about 5.31 per cent to the GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) of Uttar Pradesh. If the policymakers are aiming to achieve a 10-15 per cent GSDP contribution, more incentives and long-term policies are required. It is also important for policymakers to realise that BIDA alone would not solve the issues of Bundelkhand; rather it would multiply disparity, poverty and crime in the region. The other part of Bundelkhand, which is under Madhya Pradesh, is totally ignored.
The state government has not even taken a token initiative for industrialisation. MPIDC (Madhya Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation) has no plans like UPIDC to develop the region on the lines of BIDA. Sustainable and holistic development of the country is not possible unless each region of the country develops and contributes to making the country self-sufficient. The people of the region raise demands when they feel an acute sense of deprivation and neglect. Now they have a strong belief that economic development can only be achieved when aspirations of statehood are fulfilled. Some of the protests have gained momentum at local levels, but now the demand for smaller states is getting traction beyond local boundaries.
Not only should state boundaries be redrawn but Lok Sabha and Assembly boundaries should also be redrawn, as by the 42nd amendment to the Constitution, Lok Sabha seats were frozen at 543 based on the 1971 census. At that time, one elected Member of Lok Sabha represented about 10.1 lac citizens per constituency. If that yardstick is adopted with the current estimated electorate of about 98 crore as per Election Commission records (which would touch one billion very soon) than Lok Sabha seats would rise to about 970. But this appears to be improbable but, certainly, the next Lok Sabha will not be confined to 543 seats; hence, a delimitation exercise must be conducted before the general elections.
The 84th Amendment Act 2001 authorized the government to under take adjustments for rationalisation of electoral boundaries based on the 1991 census; the 87th Amendment Act 2003 revised the base year to the 2001 census. This exercise will not only increase seats in the Lok Sabha/state assemblies, but it will also significantly revise the number of reserved seats for meaningful representation of the deprived class. The need for smaller states is more today than ever, as representation of the people is disproportionate, which is adversely affecting the democratic values and leading to mobocracy. If at the right time, new states are not carved out from the existing bigger states, that would lead to total imbalance in representation, and regional voices would be silenced in the Lok Sabha and in state assemblies.
(The writer is a legal professional and commentator with over three decades’ experience. Views expressed are personal.)