GUWAHATI
A team of the Election Commission of India (EC), which concluded its three-day consultation in Guwahati on Friday, said the proposal to increase the number of reserved seats in Assam was widely welcomed by different organisations.
The ECI published the draft delimitation proposal for Assam in June. While the number of Assembly and Parliament seats were kept unchanged at 126 and 14, respectively, the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST) was increased from 16 to 19, and for the Scheduled Castes (SC) from eight to nine.
The geographical boundaries of several constituencies were also proposed to be altered with some regions likely to lose a few seats and some regions expected to gain a few.
Apart from welcoming the increase in the number of reserved constituencies, several organisations also welcomed the draft proposal based on the 2001 Census, the poll panel headed by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said after the consultative exercise that involved hearing more than 1,200 representations from 31 districts and 20 political organisations.
The people and organisations from three autonomous hill councils straddling Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, and West Karbi Anglong districts demanded an increase in Assembly seats owing to the geographical area, a statement issued by the EC said.
The people from Bodoland Territorial Council demanded the creation of another ST parliamentary seat for the Udalguri and Baksa districts. The Kokrajhar seat currently covers all four districts under the council. If not, they wanted at least the name of the Darang Lok Sabha seat to be changed to Udalguri, the panel said.
Restoration demand
A few representations from the Bengali-speaking Barak Valley welcomed the de-reserving of the Karimganj parliamentary seat and the proposal to reserve the adjoining Silchar seat for the SCs instead. But several individuals and organisations wanted the number of Assembly seats in the valley to be restored from the proposed 13 to 15.
“A few organisations from lower [western] and central Assam and Barak Valley districts also requested for maintaining the compactness and contiguity of the constituencies and keeping intact the administrative units as far as possible,” the EC said.
“Based on these parameters, they suggested shifting of a few villages or panchayats from one constituency to another. The maximum number of representations were of the nature of requesting the shifting of one or two villages or panchayats from one constituency to another,” it said.
Some representations questioned the timing of the delimitation exercise while others sought its deferment to permit a better understanding of the methodology being adopted, the panel said.
The EC team said the United Opposition Forum Assam apprised it of a petition filed in the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the draft delimitation proposal. Members of the forum have opposed the proposal to chop and change the geographical shapes of the constituencies and reduce the voting power of Muslims, who account for more than 34% of the State’s population.
Some seats have allegedly been proposed to be shifted from the general to the reserved category, and the boundaries of a few others altered to make the indigenous communities more potent and the Muslims, specifically the Bengali-speaking, less so.
