Another Kind of Map
T he Delimitation Commission of India has published the draft report of the delimitation process in Assam. Earlier, there were doubts as to when the delimitation exercise in Assam might begin or end. Now it is almost certain that the actual process of delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies will begin in the next few weeks and be concluded well before the Assembly elections of 2006. This could well happen regardless of the decision taken by the all-party meet held recently at Dispur that the delimitation exercise should be implemented in Assam only after the Assembly elections slated for early 2006. The reasons for this will be apparent once the implications of this delimitation exercise and the aberrations that can take place are understood.
It is normal practice in most democracies to review periodically the size and number of constituencies of the legislature in order to cope with the increase in population and the demographic changes in them. It may so happen that the size of a constituency could increase noticeably over a period of two or three decades because of a significant increase in population either due to rapid industrialization of the region, natural disasters in neighbouring regions compelling people to migrate to the constituency or because the population there has increased due to a higher fertility rate or an increase in the number of polygamous people. In India, the need for periodic delimitation of constituencies is all the greater because the country�s population is increasing at the rate of 23 million a year. And yet, it is not feasible to increase the number of constituencies frequently because this would entail the construction of new Assembly bui! ldings every few decades to accommodate the increased number of legislators. And since there will be an increase in the number of Parliamentary constituencies as well, we might well need a new Parliament building to be constructed every 50 years or so. Therefore, in India, the problem is sought to be solved by increasing the number of voters in each constituency rather than creating new constituencies. This is not always a satisfactory solution because the demographic change in each constituency is not uniform, being more pronounced in some areas than in others. There is also a vested interest in sheer numbers because the number of MPs in Parliament for each State depends on population. A huge population translates into more MPs which in turn translates into more political clout at the Centre. That is mainly how some States are better off than others that believe in population control measures!
In any case, when delimitation of constituencies does take place without any increase in the number of constituencies, some constituencies are merged together and others created anew. In other words, the map of the constituencies has to be drawn afresh. This is when electoral advantage can accrue to some political parties and disadvantage to others. And political leaders are keen to find out what kind of a boundary will yield the greatest advantage to their own political parties. This exercise of drawing new boundaries not in an objective, impartial way to give the best advantage to the electorate but rather of drawing them to provide the greatest advantage to one political party or another is called "gerrymandering" or "jerrymandering". The word is derived from the name of Governor Gerry of Massachusetts in the US who perfected this unfair technique of influencing the electoral advantages of a political party way back in the early ! 19th century. There is no doubt that gerrymandering, which calls for a great deal of research and homework, will greatly benefit the pro-Bangladeshi lobby, because the lobby would obviously have undertaken this complex homework and will succeed in influencing the demarcation of the new boundaries of the Assembly constituencies. It is noteworthy that many of the districts of Assam will lose one or more of their present Legislative Assembly constituencies (LACs), so that new districts can have their LACs. The districts of Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Jorhat and Karimganj will all lose one LAC each, while Kamrup will lose as many as four LAC seats and Nalbari and Darrang three each. Obviously, some of the present MLAs will lose their seats and others will have a tough time getting elected because of the impending gerrymandering. But in most cases the MLAs will have only themselves to blame. It is a case of having to reap as one has sown.
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