AIUDF leaders says Muslim-majority constituencies will come down

Guwahati: The draft delimitation proposal prepared by the Election Commission of India (ECI) limits the number of Muslim-majority assembly constituencies to 22 from the previous 29, the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) said.

In 90 constituencies, local constituencies will be in majority while Bengalis will dominate in 10 to 12 seats.
AIUDF MLA Karim Uddin Barbhuiya said in a tweet, “The Election Commission of India has drafted the delimitation in such a way as to reduce the representation of Muslims in the assembly.”
The Election Commission has said that it conducted the delimitation exercise in accordance with Section 8(A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which only allows redrawing of boundaries and not any increase in the number of constituencies.
This coupled with the fact that the 2001 Census data was used to draft delimitations meant that any increase in the minority population in the constituencies reserved for SCs and STs was not taken into account. will not be kept, thus protecting them.
ECI had announced the delimitation exercise on December 27, 2022. Barely four days after the delimitation was announced, on 31 December, the Assam Cabinet decided to merge four districts with existing districts and redraw the delimitations at 14 places, effectively reducing the number of districts from 35 to 31.
Three districts – Bajali, Biswanath, and Hojai– which were merged with their native districts, had large Muslim populations.

According to The Hindu, after the merger, the proportion of Muslims in the newly merged districts was changed and this, in turn, affected the practice of the Election Commission as it allowed these new districts to redraw the constituency boundaries.
The leaders argue that there is a concerted effort to either “split” or “ghettoize” the Muslim vote.

Congress leader Prodyut Bordoloi said that the proposed draft to redraw the boundaries of assembly constituencies has no regional relevance.
“They have acted arbitrarily like the Radcliffe line was used during the partition of the country,” The Hindu quoted Bordoloi as saying.

The Radcliffe Line demarcated the border between India and Pakistan during independence.

It is named after the British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who had never been to India, but was commissioned to draw it.