A bill seeking to redraw parliamentary and assembly constituency was finally approved by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday with the government admitting there were some mistakes in the delimitation process for exempting five states from the exercise.
The members from across the political arena, which participated in a debate on the Delimitation (Amendment) Bill, 2008 although questioned on the bill, but supported its early implementation of the redraw of constituencies.
Law Minister Hansraj Bahrdwaj while moving the bill for consideration said the ordinance was promulgated to give effect to the recommendation of the Delimitation Commission.
He admitted that there were "some mistakes" but these could not be sorted out because of demands to implement the recommendations urgently. So, the government had gone by consensus as it could only accept or reject the recommendations of the Delimitation Commissions.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister P R Dasmunsi said the government had "no option" but to implement the move at the earliest in view of demands, including from the opposition BJP. We are only discharging obligation of constitutional body, he said.
Bhardwaj tabled the Bill on Monday in the Lok Sabha to further amend the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act, 1950, in the light of the recommendations of the commission headed by former Supreme Court Judge Kuldip Singh. The discussion over which took place on Tuesday.
All the upcoming elections of state assemblies and general elections schedule next year are to be held according to the redrawn constituencies of the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
The head of the committee Justice Kuldip Singh had submitted the report earlier this year regarding redrawing of electoral seats on the basis of the 2001 census.
Effect of Delimitation
As per the new delimitation act, the total number of seats will remain the same. But, the number of seats reserved for the Schedule Castes (SCs) and Schedule Tribes (STs) will enhance. Some of the MPs and MLAs would have to leave their own constituencies and resorted to the new one.
The seats reserved for the SCs in the state assemblies will ascend from 555 to 610 and for the STs, it will go up from 527 to 545.
In the Lok Sabha, the number of seats reserved for SCs will go up by 6 seats from the existing 79 to 85 and for STs it will be increased to 48 from the existing 41. Naturally, the number of general seats will go down from the existing 423 to 410 after the implementation of the new delimitation act.
Constitution on delimitation
As per the constitution, the delimitation process has to be undertaken after every 10 years in perspective of latest census report, which is prepared after taking into account the demographic changes in the country. The constituencies are redrawn under the new demography accordingly.
Such exercises were carried out till the 1970s and the last one occurred on the basis of the 1971 census.
The new delimitation will supersede the (existing) Delimitation Order of 1976 and as a result to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1950 the bill was presented on Monday and was passed by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
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