Guwahati: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday published the final order for delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies for Assam, as provided for in Section 8-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, with assembly seats remaining at 126 and Lok Sabha seats at 14.
The final order, notified and published in the gazettes of the central government and state of Assam, has been prepared by the Commission after an extensive and robust consultative exercise with diverse stakeholders, which included three days of public hearings in Guwahati on the draft proposal in July 2023, and pre-meeting before drafting of the report in March 2023.
“Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has appreciated the ability of different groups of Assam to present their conflicting claims on various issues in a respectful and friendly manner, without creating confrontations or hostility. All representations were duly heard by the three-member Commission and were considered and assessed, within the constitutional and statutory provisions, before finalising the proposal,” an official statement issued by ECI on Friday said.
All Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in the state have been delimited based on the 2001 Census as provided in Article 170 and Article 82 of the Constitution.
The census figures of 2001, as published by the Census Commissioner, have thus alone been considered for this purpose.
“The number of seats in the Legislative Assembly in the state of Assam has been kept as 126 and the number of seats allocated in the House of People for the State of Assam as 14,” the statement said.
It may be mentioned that Articles 170 and 82 have laid down that the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of each state and the allocation of seats in the House of the People to the states shall not be altered until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published.
“Nine seats in the Legislative Assembly have been allocated for Scheduled Castes, while one seat was allocated for Scheduled Castes in the House of People. Nineteen Assembly constituencies and two Parliament Constituencies have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes,” it said.
“Reservation of constituencies for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been done on the basis of the provisions laid down in Articles 330 and 332 of the Constitution of India,” the statement said.
Some salient features:
The lowest administrative unit has been taken as a ‘Village’ in rural areas and a ‘Ward’ in urban areas. Accordingly, the village and ward have been kept intact and have not been broken anywhere in the State.
The proposal has been prepared based on administrative units of development such as development blocks, Panchayats (VCDC in BTAD) and villages in rural areas Municipal Boards, and wards in urban areas.
SC Assembly seats have increased from 8 to 9; ST Assembly seats have increased from 16 to 19.
There has been an increase of one Assembly seat in Autonomous districts in West Karbi Anglong district.
There has been an increase in Assembly constituencies (ACs) in Bodoland districts from 11 to 15.
Diphu and Kokrajhar Parliamentary seats have been kept reserved for ST.
Lakhimpur Parliamentary seat has been kept as unreserved; while there will be one unreserved Assembly constituency in Dhemaji district.
One Parliamentary seat, namely ‘Diphu’ reserved for ST, which comprises six Assembly constituencies of three Autonomous districts.
Two Parliamentary seats have been given to the Barak Valley districts – Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj.
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One Parliamentary seat has been named ‘Kaziranga’, while one Assembly constituency has been named ‘Manas’.
Renaming of certain ACs and PCs
After considering representations, the Commission in the final order has revised the existing nomenclature of 19 Assembly constituencies and one Parliamentary constituency.
One Parliamentary and some Assembly constituencies get paired names such as Darrang-Udalguri, Hajo- Sualkuchi, Boko-Chaygaon, Nagaon- Batadrava, Bhowanipur-Sorbhog, Algapur- Katlichera, in view of the demand from members of the public.
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