At a time when Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that a full bench of Election Commission of India (ECI) will visit the state next week for inspecting the ground reality and expectations of stakeholders, the general public on the ongoing delimitation exercise, the Assam Congress has urged the ECI to conduct the process based on latest census data.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly and Congress MLA from Samaguri constituency in Nagaon, Rakibul Hussain, during a meeting here in Guwahati claimed that there is no second thought on delimitation exercise, but, the move to redraw the assembly and parliamentary seats of Assam with the old census data would lead to a drop in a huge section of the population.
“We had already submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission in this regard, but the Election Commission has decided to come to Assam without responding to our letter. We will meet EC again,” said Rakibul Hussain.
Meanwhile, CM Sarma in the state assembly said the government has no information on when the process of delimitation of constituencies would be over.
He said that any question that the opposition may have about the process can be placed before the ECI when its full team visits the state next week.
"The state government cannot say when the process will be completed as we are not directly or indirectly involved. EC is a central agency. Our work is only to provide the data," CM Sarma said in a reply to a question on the delimitation process by Congress MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed.
The process began on January 1, the chief minister added.
The delimitation exercise was not stalled in the state due to the updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), he informed.
"The then Congress government had written to the delimitation commission that the law and order situation was not conducive for carrying out the process then. When we were asked if it can be done now, we said that the situation has improved," Sarma told the assembly.
Sarma asked the MLAs to continue working equally for all areas within their constituency without speculating which localities will be eliminated when the delimitation process is complete.
"The full bench of the EC is coming here, and they will hold discussions with political parties and other stakeholders. I request all to place before them any misgivings and get the matters clarified," CM Sarma added further.
About Delimitation
Delimitation is the process of fixing limits or boundaries of the territorial constituencies in a country or a state with a legislative body.
Under the provisions of the Delimitation Act, 1972, the last delimitation of constituencies in Assam was effected on the basis of 1971 census figures by the then Delimitation Commission in 1976.
The move to redrawing the assembly and parliamentary seats of Assam as per Section 8A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 has been initiated following a request from the Union Law Ministry.
In the Indian context, Delimitation is the process of redrawing boundaries of Lok Sabha and state Assembly seats to represent changes in the population. It’s only after this exercise has been completed that an election can be conducted.
The objective is to have equal representation to equal segments of the population and ensure a fair division of geographical areas so that all political parties or candidates contesting elections have a level playing field in terms of the number of voters.
