The Election Commission on Wednesday began public hearings in Guwahati on the draft delimitation proposal for Assam.
The full Bench of the commission, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, will meet political parties, civil society organisations and other sections of society over three days till Friday.
The draft delimitation proposal for Assam was published on June 20, 2023 and objections were invited till July 11.
Over 780 representations have been received during this period. The public hearings are part of the consultative exercise by the commission during the process of delimitation, the poll body said in a statement.
The commission would on Wednesday hear suggestions for Kamrup Metropolitan, West Karbi Anglong, Chirang, Baksa, Dima Hasao, Kamrup, Udalguri, Karbi Anglong and Kokrajhar districts.
Feedback for Goalpara, Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari, Sonitpur, Karimganj, Darrang, Hailakandi, Cachar, South Salmara, Nagaon, Morigaon and Dhubri will be heard on Thursday, while those on Tinsukia, Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Golaghat and Majuli districts would be heard on the last day.
The delimitation draft increases the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes from 16 to 19 and Scheduled Castes from 8 to 9 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, however, have cried foul over the process, accusing the Election Commission of acting at the behest of the ruling BJP.
Move Supreme Court
On July 17, 10 opposition leaders from 9 parties of Assam approached the Supreme Court challenging the ECI’s draft delimitation order.
The parties have questioned the methodology of carrying out the ongoing delimitation exercise and using of different average assembly sizes for different districts.
The petitions have been filed by leaders of the Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI(M), CPI, TMC, NCP, RJD and Anchalik Gana Morcha.
The commission had last visited Guwahati in March this year before the delimitation exercise began. It had received representations from 11 political parties and 71 organisations at that time.
The last delimitation exercise in Assam was carried out in 1976.
A commission was set up in 2002 but before its exercise was completed in 2008, the delimitation in four north-eastern States — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland — was deferred due to “security risks” through presidential orders.
Apart from law and order, various organisations in Assam, including the BJP, were opposed to delimitation in 2008 as they wanted it to be done only after the updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to weed out illegal immigrants.
However, the NRC carried out in 2019 ran into trouble in December 2022 when an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India revealed several irregularities in fund utilisation and exclusion of several indigenous people of Assam.
