Assam: Election Commission Publishes Final Order For Delimitation Of Assembly, Parliamentary Seats

The final proposal has been prepared by the EC after an extensive and robust consultative exercise with diverse stakeholders.

A voter casts vote at a polling station.

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New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday published the final order for delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in Assam, as provided in Section 8-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

The final order has been notified and published in the gazettes of the central government and Assam. The final proposal has been prepared by the EC after an extensive and robust consultative exercise with diverse stakeholders, which included three days of public hearings in Guwahati on the draft proposal in July 2023 and a pre-meeting before the drafting of the report in March 2023.

The commission, during the public hearings on draft delimitation proposal, received many conflicting representations from members of the public, political parties and organisations for change of nomenclature of some parliamentary and assembly constituencies, and highlighting the historical, cultural, political, and ethnic significance of the region, the EC said in a statement.

All representations were duly heard by the Commission, comprising the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners and were considered and assessed within the constitutional and statutory provisions before finalising the proposal, the EC informed.

A total of 1,222 representations were received with respect to the commission’s draft proposal in public sittings or otherwise. Around 45 per cent of the 1222 suggestions and objections received in the Commission have been addressed in the final proposal. Another five per cent of the representations, demands raised were found to be beyond the constitutional and statutory provisions and hence could not be acceded to. The requests made in all the remaining suggestions and objections were not found feasible to accommodate, the statement informed further.

All assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Assam have been delimited based on the 2001 census, as provided in Article 170 and Article 82 of the Constitution. The census figures of 2001 as published by the census commissioner have, thus, alone been considered for this purpose. The number of seats in the state legislative assembly has been kept at 126 and the number of seats allocated in the house of people of the state is at 14. Articles 170 and 82 of the Constitution stipulates that the number of seats in the legislative assembly of each state and the allocation of seats in the house of the people to the states shall not be altered until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published, the statement from the EC added.

Altogether nine seats in the legislative assembly have been allocated for the Scheduled Castes (SC), while one seat has been allocated for SC in the house of people.

Further, 19 assembly constituencies and two parliamentary constituencies have been reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST). The reservation of constituencies for SCs and STs has been done on the basis of the provisions laid down in Article 330 and 332 of the Constitution, the EC statement added.

Some salient features of the final delimitation order:

• Lowest administrative unit has been taken as a village in rural areas and ward in urban areas. Accordingly, the village and ward have been kept intact and have not been broken anywhere in the state. The proposal has been prepared based on administrative units of development.
• SC assembly seats have been increased from eight to nine; ST assembly seats have increased from 16 to 19.
• Increase of one assembly seat in the autonomous districts in West Karbi Anglong district.
• Increase of assembly constituencies in Bodoland districts from 11 to 15.
• Retaining Diphu and Kokrajhar parliamentary seats reserved for ST.
• Continuing Lakhimpur parliamentary seat as unreserved.
• One unreserved assembly constituency in Dhemaji district.
• One parliamentary seat in Diphu has been reserved for ST which comprises six assembly constituencies of three autonomous districts.
• Two parliamentary seats have been given to the Barak Valley districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj.
• One Parliamentary seat has been named as Kaziranga, while another assembly constituency has been named as Manas.