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Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and Chairman of Delimitation Commission of India Justice Kuldip Singh at a hearing on delimitation of constituencies in Chennai yesterday.

        The Delimitation Commission during the public hearing on its draft proposals for Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies in Tamilnadu is facing a lot of opposition like many other States across the country.

        The grounds for opposition is mostly on the basis of resistance to the removal of a traditional name or deletion of a segment which is considered the heart of the constituency. Objections were also made when the constituency covered several taluks which traditionally formed part of another seat.
 

        Participating in the public hearing organised by the Delimitation Commission here yesterday, Public Works Minister Durai Mururgan who represents the Katpadi Assembly constituency referred to the bifurcation of his constituency and said it was not appropriately planned.

        While redrawing the boundaries, panchayat unions and panchayats were divided. As per the current plan the Katpadi constituency would cover three-four taluks. Similar opposition was also heard from many quarters, for the abolition of Triplicane Assembly constituency. Several prominent citizens including MLA Badar Sayeed, Ibrahim and Ethiraja Jeeyar opposed the move. Union Minister of State for Law and Justice K Venkatapathy wanted the Chinnasalem constituency renamed as Sankarapuram.

        While political and different social groups want significant changes on the draft notification, it is not known how the Commission is going to handle these sensitive issues. If the yardstick for rejecting or accepting a demand is going to be transparent it would helpful both for the people and the Commission. Changes or amendment in the published draft notification on delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies should be done only on the basis of sound reasoning and the autonomous body should stand up to pressure to make the tough and lengthy exercise useful for the nation.
 

The task on hand         The job on the hands of the Delimitation Commission is to redraw the territorial constituencies for both the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies on the basis of the census figures. This is being done without affecting the total number of seats allocated to each State in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly.          Its other task would be to refix the seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies, again on the basis of the census figures.