Chief election commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra on Friday highlighted the need for carrying out a delimitation exercise while speaking on problems faced by the people of Jammu and Kashmir due to overlapping of districts and tehsils across several constituencies. He further said the delimitation drive will be undertaken on the basis of the 2011 Census, according to a report by news agency ANI.
“There is an overlapping of districts as well as the tehsils across constituencies. These indicate the public faces inconvenience due to these anomalies. In 1995, there were 12 districts, the number of districts rose to 20. The number of tehsils too have risen from 58 to 270. At least in 12 such districts, constituency boundaries have extended beyond the district’s limit,” the CEC was quoted as saying by ANI.
Chandra said the first full-fledged delimitation commission was formed in 1981. The commission submitted its recommendations after 14 years in 1995 and the recommendations were based on the 1981 census. He said no delimitation has taken place after that.
He also said that the commission, headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai, is not working based on any plan which was made beforehand. The CEC said the draft will be prepared and presented in the public domain for everyone’s comments following which a final draft on the delimitation exercise will be prepared.
“Before starting the exercise, we want to listen to the views of everyone. These apprehensions in the mind of anyone, if at all, should go away,” Chandra added. The commission is on a four-day visit to the Union territory and is interacting with leaders of political parties and officials before conducting the major exercise of redrawing constituencies and carving out new ones in the erstwhile state.
{{/usCountry}}“Before starting the exercise, we want to listen to the views of everyone. These apprehensions in the mind of anyone, if at all, should go away,” Chandra added. The commission is on a four-day visit to the Union territory and is interacting with leaders of political parties and officials before conducting the major exercise of redrawing constituencies and carving out new ones in the erstwhile state.
{{/usCountry}}What is delimitation exercise?
The delimitation exercise is conducted to redraw boundaries of an assembly or a Lok Sabha seat to reflect changes in population over a period of time. The exercise is carried out by the Delimitation Commission and its orders cannot be challenged before any court. The aim of the exercise is to redraw boundaries, depending on the data of the last census, to ensure that the population of all the constituencies remain the same throughout the state or Union Territory. The process can also result in a change in the number of seats in a state or Union territory.