Delimiting the Electoral Boundaries *Saumitra Mohan The exercise for another delimitation of the physical boundaries of the electoral constituencies for various legislative assemblies and the national parliament has been underway for quite some time. It is learnt that the final recommendations have already been submitted to the government. It is not before long when the same would be formalised through a parliamentary enactment and subsequent presidential notification. Delimitation literally means the act or process of fixing limits on boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province having a legislative body. The job of delimitation is generally assigned to a high power body. Such a body is known as Delimitation Commission or a Boundary Commission. In India, such Delimitation Commissions have been constituted four times i.e. in 1952, in 1963, in 1973 and in 2002. The Delimitation Commission in India is a high power body whose orders have the force of law and can not be called in question before any court. These orders come into force on a date to be specified by the President of India in this behalf. According to Article 82 of the Constitution of India, upon the completion of each census, the allocation of seats in the House of the People to the States and the division of each State into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority and in such manner as the Parliament may by law determine. Pursuant to the enactment of a Delimitation Act by the Parliament, the Central Government constitutes a Delimitation Commission which demarcates the boundaries of the Parliamentary Constituencies as per provisions of the Act. The Delimitation Commission, set up under the Delimitation Act, 2002, for the redelimitation of all the Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies of India (except Jammu & Kashmir) on the basis of 1991 census, has been carrying out its task for the entire country since the year 2000. As soon as the delimitation order of the Delimitation Commission is finalised, the existing constituencies will cease to exist and would be replaced by the new constituencies, that is, redelimited constituencies. This would necessitate reworking of the finally published electoral rolls and recasting them in conformity with the newly redelimited constituencies. The present delimitation of electoral constituencies is based on the 1971 census figures. Notwithstanding the above, the Constitution of India was specifically amended in 1976 so as not to have delimitation of these constituencies till the first census after 2000. The 84th amendment in 2001 provided that until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published, it shall not be necessary to readjust the allocation of seats in the House of the People of the States as readjusted on the basis of 1971 Census and the division of each State into territorial constituencies as may be readjusted on the basis of the 2001 Census. So far, the Constituencies carved out on the basis of 1971 census have been continuing. After the census data for 2001 was released on 31st December, 2003, a new delimitation exercise was, therefore, necessitated to bring the constituencies to conform to the new figures. After almost three years of painstaking work, the Commission, which was constituted in 2002 and began its work in the middle of 2004, has almost completed work in all the states barring four states in the north east. The Centre, in fact, has deferred the delimitation exercise in four north-eastern states and Jharkhand due to unresolved ‘problems’ of shifting the rural seats from urban seats by approving amendments to the Delimitation Act 2002 and has reportedly decided to promulgate an ordinance soon. It is believed, the amendments to the Delimitation Act, 2002 would take care of the concerns expressed by the delimitation exercise in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh due to the situation prevailing there. The Delimitation Commission in the meanwhile has concretised its proposals and has redrawn the boundaries of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies. Work has been completed in 513 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies and 3,726 Assembly constituencies in 25 states resulting in a net addition of ten seats for Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in parliament and 68 in the Assemblies. Accordingly, the next Lok Sabha elections are likely to be held in redrawn constituencies once the President notifies the recommendations, an exercise that has already made many politicians unhappy. The Delimitation Commission Chief Kuldeep Singh, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, also concedes that there would be some politicians who will be unhappy over these changes in constituencies, but feels by and large political parties are not opposed to the exercise. If many politicians do not feel happy about the exercise, there is a reason for that. After all, every politician has been contesting and getting elected from the same constituency every five years for the last 30 years. He or she knows who his voters are and is, thus, familiar with the necessary details of his/her constituency. Since the limits of almost all the constituencies have been redrawn, the typical Indian politician is definitely going to be inconvenienced in more ways than one. Hence, his/her dislike for any change in his constituency. But the exercise is too important to be left to personal likes or dislikes of individual politicians. The newly redelimited boundaries of constituencies better reflect the electoral realities on the ground and no petty political considerations should be allowed to influence their enforcement. One just hopes that the redelimitation of electoral boundaries coupled with the other electoral reforms would further reinforce and consolidate the foundations of our fledgling democracy. Now that the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has also declared that the next general elections shall be held as per the newly redelimited electoral boundaries and that there has been an overall consensus on such an exercise is itself a testimony to the strength of our democracy. *Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal. (The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.) Address for correspondence: Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101. E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com. Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R). Fax: 033-26802043. Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283.

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