THE UNION authorities on Thursday prolonged the Delimitation Commission’s time period by a 12 months and excluded the northeastern states from its mandate.
The Commission now has time until March 6, 2022, to redraw Jammu and Kashmir’s electoral constituencies. The extension, in line with sources, was requested by the Commission since J&K’s Election Commissioner, who can be a member of the Commission, was appointed solely on October 30 final 12 months, following which he was busy with District Development Council polls within the Union Territory.
The extension given to the Delimitation Commission means one other 12 months’s delay in holding Assembly elections in J&K.
The determination to discontinue the delimitation train for Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, and Nagaland comes virtually eight months after S K Mendiratta, former authorized adviser to the Election Commission, red-flagged the Centre’s order establishing a Delimitation Commission for the 4 northeastern states calling it “unconstitutional” and “illegal”.
Mendiratta, who served with the Election Commission for over 50 years, had written a letter to the three election commissioners in June final 12 months, mentioning that the Law Ministry’s notification of March 6 violates the Representation of the People Act 1950.
Section 8A of the Act, launched by Parliament in 2008, states that delimitation within the 4 northeastern states, when held, would fall inside the Election Commission’s remit. Hence, any delimitation train in Arunachal, Manipur, Assam and Nagaland by the brand new Delimitation Commission could be “declared void by the courts” and, subsequently, end in “wastage of huge precious public funds”, Mendiratta wrote in his letter.
Although the federal government had determined to amend the Representation of the People Act 1950 to present legality to its March 6 order, it now appears to have now deserted the thought. According to sources, the apprehensions expressed within the northeastern states over utilizing the 2001 Census for the delimitation train is another excuse behind deferring it.
