A delegation of leaders from 11 Opposition parties of Assam staged a protest in front of the Election Commission here against the draft delimitation document unveiled for the State.
The parties included the Congress, Trinamul Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI, CPI(M), Janata Dal (United), and regional parties like Assam Jatiya Parishad and Raijor Dal. The delegation was accompanied by Opposition MLAs from the state.
The parties claimed that they had sought time from the Election Commission well in advance but there had been no response and when they reached the commission on Friday, they were informed that no member of the commission was present.
“Thus, we sat on a protest in front of the Commission,” Congress leader Pradyut Bordoloi, who was part of the delegation, told The Hindu.
Assam PCC chief Bhupen Kumar Borah tweeted: “After refusal by ECI to meet the 11-party delegation from Assam, the delegates started a sit-in protest in front of the ECI office. It’s a shame that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using ECI as an extended arm of the BJP”.
According to an official release issued by the Election Commission (EC), the Chief Election Commissioner Mr Rajiv Kumar was in Panama where he signed an MoU with the Electoral Tribunal of Panama on knowledge exchange between the two election management bodies.
The EC had consulted 11 political parties and 71 civil society organisations before formulating the draft proposal on June 20. The Congress had boycotted the deliberations.
The draft delimitation proposal for Assam released by the EC in June increases the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes from 16 to 19 and Scheduled Castes from eight to nine in the State legislature, while retaining the total number of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies at 126 and 14, respectively. It also proposes to alter the geographical boundaries of most constituencies, while eliminating a few and creating some new ones.
Opposition parties have, however, cried foul saying that the intended redrawing of boundaries would only benefit the ruling BJP and was aimed at neutralizing the minority vote and in some cases also the Bengali vote bank.
On Friday, the Opposition delegation also met Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI’s D Raja and members of the CPI(M) politbureau. Mr Raja expressed solidarity with the delegation’s demands.
Mr. Kharge tweeted that the delegation handed over a representation to him regarding the collective objections to the delimitation exercise in the State.
“This issue will be taken up on all appropriate forums. The delimitation exercise in Assam needs wider acceptance and consensus within the political spectrum,” he said.
