Assam TMC Urges ECI to Defer Delimitation Exercise

The Assam Trinamool Congress party urged the Election Commission of India to defer the delimitation process in the state and issued a list of reasons to support their request.

A memorandum was submitted to the ECI on March 22 where they urged to defer the ongoing Delimitation Exercise which will be in force for only 3 years and to carryout it from 2026 along with the Delimitation process in the entire Country.

To support their request, TMC issued a set of reasons citing National Register of Citizens (NRC), population census among several others in its memorandum.

At first, the memorandum stated the delimitation process in Assam which started in the 2003-04 was postponed in 2008 on the consensus arrived among the political parties that the delimitation exercise in Assam shall be taken only after completion of updating of NRC. Although the final updated list of NRC was published on August, 2019, nearly names of 19 lakhs applicants were dropped from the final list and as per NRC procedure they were not given the reasons of rejection of their names, for which they have not yet been able to file appeal petition to review their cases for inclusion of their names in NRC.

Under this backdrop without finalizing the entire process of NRC, without identifying the foreigners, the purpose of postponement of delimitation exercise in Assam in 2008 will serve no purpose, the memorandum added.

Led a delegation of @AITC4Assam and submitted a seven-point memorandum to the Chief Election Commissioner of India on the delimitation process to suspend the current delimitation exercise till 2026, when the entire country's delimitation will be taken up. pic.twitter.com/Lpm3MOlKP9

— Ripun Bora (@ripunbora) March 27, 2023

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The following points were put forward by TMC as reasons to the ECI:

1. The Delimitation commission postponed the delimitation exercise in Assam in 2008 on the basis of the consensus arrived among the Political Parties. But it is very surprising that Election Commission of India all on a sudden started the delimitation exercise in Assam without any prior consultation with the Political Parties which was earlier postponed on the demand of Political Parties.

2. The present delimitation exercise in Assam is started on the basis of the population census report of 2001. It is not understood why the latest population census report is not taken into consideration. The population census report of 2021 has not yet been published. If this delimitation exercise is taken out on the basis of latest population census report available (2011) it would have been more effective, because the present population data of the Legislative Assembly constituencies will help in properly adjusting the constituencies.

3. Normally in the delimitation exercise as done in the past we have seen increase of Assembly constituencies. In case of Assam since 1972 (Last Delimitation) there is no increase of Assembly constituencies. At present considering a tremendous increase of population and voters comparing to 1972, there is strong justification for increase of Assam Assembly Constituencies from existing 126. But in this delimitation exercise, there is no provision for increasing of Assam Assembly constituencies.

4. As you know the delimitation exercise for the entire Country in respect of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies is due in 2026. Therefore the ongoing exercise on delimitation will be in force only for 3 years. Since we have waited for such a long time to complete the delimitation in Assam, we do not see any urgency to carry out this delimitation exercise only for 3 years at the cost of huge public money and precious time.

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