Hyderabad: The electoral fortunes of many politicians in all parties, including those who fought for a separate Telangana state, may be in jeopardy once the state is divided due to the fresh round of delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies.
There will be a change in the number of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the two states. The reservation status of constituencies will also change because of the delimitation process, which the AP Reorganisation Bill makes mandatory. Significantly, the delimitation process, unless otherwise decided by Parliament while passing the division Bill, might delay the elections for both the Lok Sabha and Assembly in the two states even as the rest of the country goes to the polls in April-May 2014.
“Parliament has to empower the Election Commission on which method the latter has to follow for delimitation,” Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal told this newspaper.
The normal procedure of delimitation will take time as the Election Commission has to give notification, call for objections, and take the final decision. But Parliament can ask the EC to notify reserved constituencies through an executive order, he added.
Allocation of seats for SCs and STs are made on the basis of the proportion of their population in each state to that of the total population of the state.
Delimitation process to face changes
Official sources said the top brass of the state administration has raised doubts over the states going through the delimitation process once again within five years. But the Centre brushed aside the apprehensions like it did on several other contentious issues like Article 371(D) and powers to the Governor in the common capital.
“Changes are inevitable because the whole of AP?was taken as a unit and now in the fresh round of delimitation, each state will have to be taken as one unit,” a senior official pointed out.
According to the 2011 Census, the total population in the residuary state will be 4.93 cr of which SCs are 84.45 lakh (17.1 %) and STs 26.31 lakh (5.3%). The total population of Telangana state will be 3.52 cr of which SCs are 54.32 lakh (15.4%) and STs 32.86 lakh (9.3%). As per the existing reservation matrix, four Lok Sabha seats are reserved for SCs and one for STs in Seemandhra while three seats are reserved for SCs and two for STs in Telangana. There may not be any change in the number of seats but the reservation status might change.
Similarly, in the present Assembly there are 29 seats for SCs and seven for STs and as per the new calculations, the number of seats for SCs will go up to 30 and STs to nine. There will be major changes in reservation status of existing segments in Andhra region where the SC population is very high.
Former adviser to the EC K.J. Rao, however, said clarity would emerge on the state’s division by the time the EC makes the announcement on elections some time in the first week of March. The EC can complete delimitation in a week’s time, he said.
