Nine Opposition parties in Assam move Supreme Court against EC’s delimitation proposal

Nine Opposition parties in Assam have moved the Supreme Court challenging the methodology adopted by the Election Commission in creating a delimitation draft for the state, Live Law reported.

A delimitation exercise refers to demarcating boundaries of assembly and parliamentary constituencies as well as civic wards.

In the draft released on June 20, the poll body has proposed to abolish several Muslim-majority assembly seats by either merging or subsuming them under other newly-created constituencies – many of them with significant Hindu populations.

The Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Anchalik Gana Morcha have opposed the exercise in the Supreme Court.

In their petition, the parties have challenged Section 8A of the Representation of People Act, 1950, based on which the Election Commission has exercised its power to conduct the delimitation process, according to Bar and Bench.

They claimed that the methodology adopted by the poll body for the exercise took different average assembly sizes for different districts and argued that population density has no role to play in the delimitation exercise.

The petitioners said that by relying on the data of the 2001 census, the Election Commission has created three categories of districts and has taken a different yardstick for...

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