Election Commission of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday published the final order for delimitation in Assam by reserving three more Assembly constituencies for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one more for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) while nomenclature of at least 19 Assembly constituencies was also revised.
The commission, however, retained the total number of Assembly seats at 126 and Lok Sabha seats at 14.
The final order for the delimitation exercise said that the number of Assembly constituencies reserved for STs have been increased from 16 at present to 19 while the same for SCs were increased to nine from eight. The delimitation exercise was carried out based on the Census figures of 2001 as provided under Articles 170 and 82 of the Constitution, the EC said.
The number of Assembly constituencies under Bodoland districts has been increased from 11 to 15 while one more seat was increased in the Karbi Anglong autonomous district council areas by redrawing the boundaries. The EC, however, retained Diphu and Kokrajhar Lok Sabha seats reserved for the STs.
One Lok Sabha seat has been named after Kaziranga, the famous national park and abode of one-horned rhinos while an Assembly seat has been renamed after Manas, another national park sharing borders with Bhutan.
The Election Commission on June 20 had published the draft of the delimitation and conducted a public hearing on the draft in Guwahati in July in which it received 1,222 representations from organisations and individuals. The EC final order said 45 per cent of the suggestions and objections regarding the draft proposal have been addressed while in five per cent representations, the demands raised were found to be beyond the constitutional and statutory provisions. A team of the ECI headed by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar also visited Assam in March and met representatives of political parties, civil society organisations and others before releasing the draft proposals.
Party reactions
The Opposition Congress, however, boycotted the hearings saying the delimitation in the state should be done after 2026 when the same would be carried out across the country.
The ruling BJP and its regional allies welcomed the delimitation exercise saying that the same would ensure the protection of political representation of the state's "indigenous" communities. The Congress and Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), on the other hand, rejected the exercise saying it would reduce representations of the Muslims in Assam. Ajmal said the delimitation was done as per BJP's "dictation" for the political murder of AIUDF and the Muslims in the state.
The last delimitation exercise in Assam was carried out in 1976. A new delimitation exercise was supposed to be carried out in 2007 but the same in the state was postponed due to law and order issues. The ECI, however, resumed the process for the exercise in December last year after being asked by the government.