Th Binoy Kumar Singha
( The writer can be reached at binoykrsingha@gmail.com)
The year 2023 has begun with the delimitation process of the Legislative Assemblies and Parliamentary Constituencies in Assam as per the Delimitation Act, 2002 based on the 2001 Census by the Delimitation Commission of India (DCI) in collaboration with the Election Commission of India (ECI), and it must be welcomed by one and all The exercise is to be conducted as per provision of Section 8A of the Representation of People's Act, 1950 and as mandated under Article 170 of the Constitution. It will be based on the 2001 Census for readjustment, including the reservation of constituencies for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe as per provision of Articles 330 and 332 of the Constitution. Since this is a democratic process, we are hopeful that the three OVs principle - that is, One Voter, One Vote, One Value - is fully adjudicated keeping in view the next Census to be conducted only after 2026. Hopefully, we will be able to celebrate the festival of democracy by exercising adult suffrage in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election which falls due in 2024 and the subsequent Assembly election in the State on the basis of the newly delimited constituencies.
Therefore, apart from the ruling political party and other political parties, national, regional and alliance and other stakeholders, such as various students' unions, social organizations, academicians and intelligentsia groups, have a major role to play in this exercise. But not surprisingly, just one day ahead of the delimitation process being started, the hurriedly-taken one-sided decision of the Assam Cabinet to merge four newly-created districts with their original entities and that of the decision to reorganize the boundaries of certain villages spread across fourteen districts has been confusing the citizens and invited unnecessary hue and cry from all corners.
Delimitation of constituencies, Assemblies or Parliamentary, is necessary for equal representation to equal segments of population, fair division of geographical areas so that one does not have an advantage over others at the time of election in the political arena. Otherwise, the very meaning of democracy is likely to be futile or be defeated. The number of seats for the representatives to be elected in the House of People is assigned to each State in such a way that the ratio between that number and the population of the State is, as far as feasible, the same for all States.
The delimitation process in Assam was long overdue since its last delimitation conducted way back in 1976 on the basis of the 1971 census. Although the Union Government planned to conduct the same exercise in 2001-2002, as reported, it could not be done due to opposition from various political parties and others and also the then State Government citing that the law-and-order situation was not conducive for such an exercise at that point of time. It remained pending since then. Section 15 of the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976 imposed a freeze on the population figure based on the 1971 Census for purpose of proviso to Article 81(3)(i) until the relevant figures for the first Census taken after the year 2000 were published. Thereby, the deadline was extended from 2000 to 2026 under Section 3 of the Constitution ( Eighty-Fourth Amendment) Act, 2001.
Now since the process has already been started, we should try to briefly revisit the legislative history of erstwhile Assam, now, of course, truncated into several states. Perhaps it may be cited that Assam has had a glorious history of its own. Popularly known as the ethnological museum of India, Assam has been described as Mini-India, having a rich cultural heritage with diverse races, religions and cultures. In fact, one can see this Mini-India feature in almost all the constituencies. We may recall that with the changing geographical boundaries together with the shifts in the population graph of the State, the strength of members of Assam Legislative Assembly was 108 in 1952-57, 105 in 1957-63 (Second Assembly), 114 in 1967-72 (Third Assembly) and finally 126 in 1972-78 (Fifth Assembly) which has continued till date. On the other hand, Assam elects 14 MPs to the Lok Sabha by way of adult suffrage and another 7 MPs to the Rajya Sabha elected by the elected representative of the Legislative Assemblies in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. Therefore, it may perhaps be necessary to look into this aspect in wider connotation for augmentation of the number of constituencies, if any. On the other hand, our Constitution has capped the number of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Seats to a maximum of 550 and 250 respectively, and the increasing populations are being represented by a single representative. Perhaps the whole exercise may be necessary on a notional consensus since we have to wait for the next Census to be conducted only after 2026.