By IANS
New Delhi : The union cabinet Thursday cleared a home ministry proposal for issuing an ordinance to commence the work of recasting constituencies even as the government is undecided on how to effect delimitation of Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies.
The Delimitation Commission headed by retried Supreme Court judge Kuldip Singh has submitted its report to the government for all states excluding Jharkhand and the four northeastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland.
“The Guwahati High Court has stayed the process, even before it could commence (in the four northeastern states),” Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters after the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“The cabinet has decided to bring in an ordinance to exempt the four northeastern states and Jharkhand from the proposed notification that has to be issued to start the exercise to redraw the parliamentary and assembly constituencies in 24 states on the basis of the delimitation recommendations made by the Commission.”
Official sources, however, indicated that the government was considering two distinct alternatives.
“One possibility is that we go to the president immediately to get the ordinance signed and then issue a notification to commence the work to redraw the constituencies,” an official said.
“But the ordinance has eventually to be approved by parliament and once it comes up before parliament many MPs, particularly those belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), may oppose the Jharkhand provision. Similarly, northeastern MPs may also raise issues pertaining to the northeast. Therefore there is one view that the notification should be issued only after the law is passed in parliament,” said a senior minister said on condition of anonymity.
Besides, “the Election Commission has also advised that the work on recasting the constituencies should wait and commence only in March, by which time the Election Commission would have notified the mid-term Karnataka assembly elections,” said the minister.
“But we have also to notify the MPs and political parties in time for them to prepare for the fresh contours of their constituencies. Therefore the MPs and parties are urging the government to start the exercise as soon as possible,” said the minister.
Therefore, while one view is to get the notification issued immediately after the president signs the ordinance, another view is to hold the ordinance itself till the next parliament session and issue the notification only after the law is suitably amended.
As for Jharkhand, the minister said: “The Commission’s mandate was not to decrease the constituencies reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in any state and increase it in proportion to their population increase.
“But in Jharkhand with large numbers of outsiders settling there the tribal population has decreased and if on that basis we convert a reserved seat to the general category as per the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission then we will have very serious trouble on our hands,” he said.
“Therefore, the proposed ordinance will seek to exempt Jharkhand from the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission,” the minister said.
In any case, the exercise is unlikely to begin before March, the official sources indicated.