Guwahati: The Assam Trinamool Congress party asked a postponement of the state’s delimitation procedure from the Election Commission of India, and they provided a number of justifications for their request.
A memorandum was submitted to the ECI on March 22 urging it to postpone the current Delimitation Exercise, which will only be in effect for three years and to carry out the Delimitation process across the entire country starting in 2026.
In its memorandum, TMC listed a number of justifications for its request, citing the National Registry of Citizens (NRC), a population census and other sources.
The initial version of the memorandum stated that the delimitation process in Assam, which had been underway since 2003–2004, had been delayed in 2008 due to an agreement reached by political parties that the delimitation exercise in Assam should only be undertaken once the updating of the NRC had been completed. Although the NRC’s final updated list was published in August 2019, nearly 19 lakh applicants’ names were removed from the list and, in accordance with NRC procedure, they were not informed of the reasons for rejection. As a result, they have not yet been able to file an appeal petition to have their cases for NRC inclusion reviewed.
The goal of delaying the delimitation exercise in Assam in 2008 will be useless in light of this situation without concluding the entire NRC procedure and without identifying the foreigners, the memorandum added.
The following points were put forward by TMC as reasons to the ECI:
- The Delimitation commission postponed the delimitation exercise in Assam in 2008 on the basis of the consensus arrived among the Political Parties. But it is very surprising that Election Commission of India all on a sudden started the delimitation exercise in Assam without any prior consultation with the Political Parties which was earlier postponed on the demand of Political Parties.
- The present delimitation exercise in Assam is started on the basis of the population census report of 2001. It is not understood why the latest population census report is not taken into consideration. The population census report of 2021 has not yet been published. If this delimitation exercise is taken out on the basis of latest population census report available (2011) it would have been more effective, because the present population data of the Legislative Assembly constituencies will help in properly adjusting the constituencies.
- Normally in the delimitation exercise as done in the past we have seen increase of Assembly constituencies. In case of Assam since 1972 (Last Delimitation) there is no increase of Assembly constituencies. At present considering a tremendous increase of population and voters comparing to 1972, there is strong justification for increase of Assam Assembly Constituencies from existing 126. But in this delimitation exercise, there is no provision for increasing of Assam Assembly constituencies.
- As you know the delimitation exercise for the entire Country in respect of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies is due in 2026. Therefore the ongoing exercise on delimitation will be in force only for 3 years. Since we have waited for such a long time to complete the delimitation in Assam, we do not see any urgency to carry out this delimitation exercise only for 3 years at the cost of huge public money and precious time.