Opposition members in Rajya Sabha on Friday said that states which have successfully implemented family planning programme must not be punished and any law to control population should be through democratic means and not by coercion.

Taking part in a discussion over Population Regulation Bill, 2019 — a private member bill moved by BJP’s Rakesh Sinha, that seeks to regulate population by promoting two-child per couple policy — Jairam Ramesh of Congress and Tiruchi Siva of DMK argued that states must not be made to lose out on Central allocations which are based on population.

Ramesh said that since fund allocation from Centre, made through Niti Aayog and Finance Commission, are all based on population, states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab, which have successfully controlled population, are losing out.

“We should not penalise the early pioneers in family planning … These were the states that showed the way for India but these are the states that will have lesser MPs, lesser resources, lesser tax devolution,” he asserted.

Even though delimitation has been postponed to 2026, he said, “We have to bite the bullet. 2026 is only four years now.”

Ramesh said the bill is based on a completely flawed assumption that India’s family planning programme has not worked.

“Barring the most unfortunate period of Emergency”, he said, “India’s family planning has been based on democratic means, through female literacy, female education, through provision of family planning services.”

Expressing similar views, Siva said, “My apprehension is states which are implementing family planning policy rightly, in the manner it should be, are being punished.”

He said that the Tamil Nadu government has successfully implemented the family planning policy and has been appreciated and applauded in every way.

However, he added, “Earlier we had 41 parliamentary constituencies but now after the 1971 delimitation, ours was reduced to 39 because of the population because we successfully implemented a scheme which is the need of the hour, our state was punished.”

Siva lamented that the Tamil Nadu’s share of fund under central schemes is being reduced.

“The revenue cess on various headings is being given to some states where they say the population is more and here we are being victimised and deprived of what is genuinely due to us,” he said, adding incentives must be give for successfully implementing family planning programme.

Jawhar Sircar of AITC expressed scepticism about the motive of the bill.

“We hope that it is not targeted to any community because recent studies from national family welfare survey and others show that the total fertility rate has evened out.

“We are reaching what is called the replacement fertility rate, which means we will go down in population,” he said.

He stressed that educating women is the only time tested successful method of family planning.

“How much state coercion will you use? … The deprivation that you seek to make is more of a punitive measure.”

Binoy Viswam of CPI said that the bill was designed to target a certain community.

“There is an element in that Bill which is very dangerous. There is a hidden part. It says that a certain community, certain parts of the country where that community is in big numbers, they cause the danger for the country,” he said.

Earlier in the Upper House, 15 private member bills were introduced. These included ‘The Right to Free Electricity Bill, 2022’ introduced by Sanjay Singh of AAP.