Actor-politician Pawan Kalyan on Sunday 18 February questioned the population based formula for sharing tax revenues between states and asked if the Centre was going to use the 'success of south Indian states' against their own interests.
"Is the success of south Indian states going to be used against them by Union of India??? This article flags a genuine concern that population based formula for sharing tax revenues between states & Center would hurt south Indian states," (sic) Pawan tweeted.
The Jana Sena party chief also shared an article on The Wire, that argued that 'The 15th Finance Commission May Split Open Demographic Fault Lines Between South and North India.’
The 1971 data had traditionally been used, as it was the year before aggressive family planning initiatives were taken up by the Central and state governments. It is also the determining data for the number of seats that are allocated to each state in the Lok Sabha.
Since 1971, while states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu managed to lower fertility rate and keep their population in check, states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and others considered to be in the ‘Hindi belt’ had overshot the stipulated norm set by India.
Pawan Kalyan's tweet echoed a similar sentiment, and it was also discussed in a meeting of the Joint Fact Finding Committee (JFFC) in Hyderabad recently.
The 20-member committee was formed, following a call given by Pawan Kalyan, and said they aimed to fight against the injustice meted out to both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, post bifurcation.
The issue had also come up during the meeting of the committee.
As far as the fact-finding report itself is considered, Tara said, "The committee has looked into various aspects from finances to human development and economy to jobs. The idea is to look into the conflicting claims by political parties and find out the truth on behalf of citizens and present it to the citizens."
The final report is expected to be made public in the next 15 days.
This is not the first time that Pawan has spoken on the issue, and neither is he the first prominent personality from the two Telugu states to voice this sentiment.
In January last year, Pawan had told a news channel, “The north-south divide is not between people but political class. Same rule has to be applied all over.”
He had also said that disrespect to 'sub-national identity' in a country like India, would create a fertile breeding grounds for separatist movements.
A day before Pawan Kalyan's latest tweet on the North-South divide, ruling TDP MP and an ally of the BJP, M Muralimohan, also alleged that people were tired of the 'indifferent' attitude of the Centre.
“We are contributing more to the Central pool in the form of taxes than any other state barring Maharashtra. Then why is the Union Government treating us in a step-motherly manner. We are being treated in an inhuman way in all aspects...Now, if the mindset of the Union Government does not change, all southern states might have to come together to form a separate entity,” the MP was quoted as saying.
(This story was originally published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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