Gerrymandering
Topic: Elections and the Electoral System · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Gerrymandering means drawing constituency boundaries on purpose to help one party or group win. For example, a party's supporters can be packed into a few seats, or a rival's supporters split across many seats. This defeats the idea of "one person, one vote". India guards against it by giving the job of delimitation (redrawing seats) to an independent Delimitation Commission, not to the government of the day. The Commission's orders have the force of law and cannot be challenged in court (Art. 329(a)).
Example
Imagine a ruling party wants to weaken a rival community's voting strength. It could redraw lines so that community is a minority in every seat. In India, boundaries are drawn by Delimitation Commissions, such as the 2002 Commission headed by Justice Kuldip Singh, which keeps this power out of party hands.
Don't confuse with
- Delimitation: the lawful, neutral redrawing of seats so that each has a roughly equal population. Gerrymandering is the misuse of boundary-drawing for party gain.