What is delimitation?
Delimitation is the process of redrawing Lok Sabha and state Assembly seat borders to reflect demographic changes.
Goal of delimitation:
Giving equitable representation to equal demographic groups
Fair allocation of geographic areas to prevent election advantages for one political party over another.
It should adhere to the “One Vote, One Value” premise.
Constitutional provisions:
Article 82 of the constitution gives the Parliament the power to pass a delimitation act following each census.
Article 170: According to this, following each census, the States are divided into territorial constituencies in accordance with the Delimitation Act.
Who is in charge of delimitation?
An impartial Delimitation Commission that was appointed by the Government of India is responsible for carrying out delimitation in accordance with the Delimitation Commission’s rules.
Delimitation in Assam:
According to Assam Chief Minister HimantaBiswaSarma, the process of delimitation can offer the protections that the effort to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) could not.
However, he disagreed with the population-based criteria used to define Assembly constituencies, which he claimed amounted to punishing people for abiding by the government’s two-child limit and rewarding them for “producing 12 children”.
“The Assam Accord fell short of expectations, and the NRC was a failure. By at least guaranteeing that the State Assembly is less affected by demographic shifts, delimitation for redrawing Assembly constituencies can be one exercise by which we can protect Assam’s future for two decades, Mr. Sarma said during a New Year interaction.
His party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had rejected the previous delimitation exercise in 2008, claiming that it should only be conducted after the NRC process to purge “illegal immigrants” had been successful. The phrase is frequently used to refer to Muslims who emigrated from or relocated to modern-day Bangladesh.
The full draught of citizens was published in August 2019 after the Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise, which cost $1,602.66 crore and began in October 2013, was completed. Out of 3.3 crore applications, 19.06 lakh people were excluded from the draught list for failing to provide documentation establishing their citizenship “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The NRC draught list was rejected by the BJP and indigenous rights NGOs as being flawed, and they petitioned the top court for a correction. The overwhelming consensus is that since August 25, 1971—the deadline for identifying, apprehending, and deporting such individuals—more than 40 lakh “Bangladeshis” have been residing unlawfully in the State. This is in accordance with the Assam Accord of 1985.
According to the Assam Accord, non-indigenous populations will eventually have less political representation due to constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards.
“Delimitation is being done in Assam and its (indigenous) people’s best interests. However, the exercise is not political, according to data from the 2001 census, Mr. Sarma said, criticising them for being emotional rather than analytical.
After the feelings brought on by the Assam Agitation and NRC, it is important to use reason and make difficult choices for the good of the nation and the race. The math is straightforward: 2.11 lakh voters should reside in each of Assam’s 126 constituencies if the 2.55 crore people from 2001 are divided equally with a margin of 10%, according to his calculations.
“We are forced to follow the prescribed policy of delimiting this time by population. However, I think Parliament needs to discuss the population baseline for the upcoming exercise because it invariably rewards some people for defying government policy by having more children and penalises others who do the same by having smaller families, according to the Chief Minister.
The state government combined four new districts with the ones they were split from on December 30 as a result of the delimitation exercise “for administrative convenience and in the sake of public services.”
Bajali, Biswanath, and Hojai, three of these pre-merger districts, have sizable Muslim populations that speak Bengali or are of Bengali ancestry, while Tamulpur, the fourth, has had conflicts between the tribal and non-tribal indigenous people.
