Assam delimitation draft: EC gets divergent views on renaming constituencies, increasing seats

Political parties, ethnic organisations, social and cultural groups and individual citizens made more than 1,200 representations before the poll panel

New Delhi: In its three-day-long public hearing on Assam’s draft delimitation proposal, the Election Commission received more than 1,200 representations from various groups, including those who shared divergent views on matters such as renaming assembly constituencies.

According to an official, representations came from a wide array of groups, each presenting their unique perspectives on multiple issues related to the delimitation process to redraw assembly and parliamentary constituencies.

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Political parties, ethnic organisations, social and cultural groups and individual citizens made more than 1,200 representations before the poll panel.

“During the public hearings, various groups shared conflicting views on a particular matter. There were certain demands by the groups which were beyond the remit of the delimitation exercise. But EC was able to bring diverse groups with divergent views on one table for the delimitation exercise,” an official said.

Some representations were made to increase the number of Lok Sabha and assembly seats. But the demands are beyond the remit of the delimitation exercise.

Citing examples of some divergent views, the official said Kendriya Koch Rajbangshi Lok Sanskriti Samiti demanded that the “Bhawanipur” assembly seat be renamed to “Barnagar”, whereas the Chakchaka Block Congress Committee wanted it to be “Sorbhog”.

One of the groups – “Ananda Das & 24 others” – wanted the name of the Dimoria assembly constituency to be changed to Pragjyotishpur, but another group opposed it.

The United Karbi Citizen Council and the Amri Karbi National Council wanted the Dimoria assembly seat to be reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST), while the Assam Plain Karbi Adarbar and the Dimoria District Tribal Sangha Committee wanted the constituency to be de-reserved.

“The Commission heard every voice as there was such a diverse influx of opinions. It was important to note every view. Even before the draft of delimitation was prepared, the chief election commissioner (Rajiv Kumar) had insisted on interacting with a cross-section of people to ensure maximum number of views get noted,” the official said.

He recalled that the poll panel has always consulted stakeholders on important issues such as remote voting technology.

In its delimitation draft issued on June 20, the poll panel has proposed to retain the number of assembly seats in Assam at 126 and the Lok Sabha constituencies at 14.

The EC has also proposed that the assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Castes be increased from eight to nine and for Scheduled Tribes from 16 to 19.