GUWAHATI:
As the Congress refused to meet the visiting Election Commission (EC) team to discuss the ongoing delimitation exercise in assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Assam, the poll panel has issued a fresh invitation to the major opposition party to participate in the consultation meeting by Tuesday.
A full team of the EC arrived in Guwahati on March 26 to meet all stakeholders regarding the delimitation exercise.
Chief Election Commissioner of India Rajiv Kumar, Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel, and other ECI officials would know the ground reality and expectations of the stakeholders and the general public regarding the ongoing delimitation exercise.
However, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has refused to meet the EC team stating that the EC is yet to respond to their queries that have been submitted on January 4 about several loopholes in the delimitation exercise in the state.
In an email message to the CEC, APCC president Bhupen Kumar Bora said: “It may please be noted that a delegation of APCC president, ACLP and deputy CLP leaders, three Congress MPs of Assam, APCC working presidents, MLAs and ex-MLAs met the CEC on January 4 in New Delhi and submitted a memorandum. The CEC heard the contents of the memorandum and assured to reply.”
“But we have not received any reply from the CEC and so sent a reminder on February 8, to take appropriate action on our memorandum. Again APCC prayed for an appointment with the ECI in New Delhi preferably on March 22, but they denied the appointment to us,” Bora said.
“Since the issues mentioned in the memorandum submitted to CEC have not been addressed and we have not received any acknowledgement till today, therefore APCC has decided not to meet the visiting EC team in Guwahati today,” Bora added.
Assam Congress Legislature Party (ACLP) leader Debabrata Saikia said the ACLP has submitted a memorandum to the EC on January 4 regarding the merger of four Assam districts by the Assam government just before the delimitation exercise came into force.
“But they are yet to respond to our letter. We sent an email to the visiting EC team today. We are not participating in the consultation,” Saikia said.
In its fresh invitation letter to the APCC, Assam’s joint chief electoral officer (CEO) said “The Congress party was given time in Delhi in January. All the points made by the party were duly noted by the EC. The Commission, thereafter, decided to hear all stakeholders including political parties, people’s representatives, and civil society organizations. To reach out to wider stakeholders and make it easier for them, the EC decided to come to Guwahati from March 26 to 28 and issued an open invitation through a press release.”
“Right now, the Commission is in the process of hearing over 50 stakeholders in addition to 10 national and state political parties in Guwahati. It is in this context and in respect to your request on March 22 to meet the Commission in Delhi that an immediate time was given to your party to meet the commission on March 27,” the letter said.
“As the Commission has received several representations raising issues/ giving suggestions, a point-to-point a priori clarification of the nature being insisted would not be feasible. The Commission is still in the process of collecting inputs/ viewpoints/ suggestions,” it said.
“As the ECI places high value on the viewpoints of a national political party, I am directed by the Commission to once again extend an invitation and request you to join the ongoing consultations. To this end, any time convenient today or by 1 pm tomorrow would be facilitated,” the letter added.
However, APCC chief spokesperson Maanjit Mahanta said: “We are yet to take a final decision. Most likely, we will not meet the EC team.”
On January 4, the APCC urged the ECI not to continue the delimitation exercise as the situation as stood in 2008, when the earlier delimitation process was stopped has not witnessed any change.
“The delimitation exercise all over the country was conducted by constituting a Delimitation Commission and hence we make a further prayer to undertake the process of delimitation through duly constituted Delimitation Commission and which should be based on the latest available census data, if at any stage a consensus for such delimitation arises,” the APCC added.
The delimitation exercise which was started in 2003-2004 was postponed in 2008 on the consensus arrived among the political parties that the delimitation exercise will be taken only after the completion of updating of NRC.
Though the final updated NRC for Assam was published on August 31, 2019, the issue is still unresolved. Nearly names of 19 lakh applicants have been dropped from the final list and till now as per NRC procedure they have not
been given the reasons for the rejection of their names, for which they have not yet been able to file an appeal petition to review their cases for inclusion of their names in NRC.
“Under this backdrop without finalizing the entire process of NRC, without identifying the foreigners, the purpose of postponement of delimitation exercise in Assam in 2008 will serve no purpose,” they added.