New Delhi: The Election Commission has proposed to retain the number of assembly seats in Assam at 126 and the Lok Sabha constituencies at 14 as it released on Tuesday the draft delimitation document for the northeastern state.
According to an official statement, the EC has proposed that the assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Castes be increased from eight to nine and for Scheduled Tribes seats from 16 to 19. A parliamentary seat has been proposed to be named Kaziranga. The EC draft on delimitation proposes to reserve 19 assembly and two parliamentary seats for STs, and nine assembly and one parliamentary seats for SCs.
The poll body proposed that the number of assembly seats in the autonomous districts of West Karbi Anglong be increased by one and in Bodoland autonomous council areas by three (from 16 to 19).
The EC has retained Diphu and Kokrajhar parliamentary seats reserved for ST and continued the Lakhimpur parliamentary seat as unreserved.
According to the proposals, there will be one unreserved assembly seat in Dhemaji district. Two parliamentary seats have been proposed for the Barak Valley districts -- Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel are slated to visit Assam in July for a public hearing on the draft proposal. The delimitation exercise was carried out on the basis of 2001 census. The last delimitation was done in Assam in 1976. Seeking to make the delimitation exercise fair and equitable, the poll panel devised the guidelines and methodology keeping in mind the constitutional and legal provisions and the suggestions received in representations.
The EC visited Assam from March 26-28 this year and held interactions with political parties, public representatives, civil society members, social organisations, members of public and officers in the state including chief electoral officer, deputy commissioners of all districts and district election officers regarding delimitation exercise in the state.
In total, representations from 11 political parties and 71 other organisations were received and considered.