From Our Special Correspondent

GUWAHATI: Anti-influx forum, Prabajan Virodhi Manch, has termed Centre’s order for delimitation of constituencies in four Northeastern states as “flawed” and “detrimental to the interests of the indigenous people.”

The Centre had on Friday ordered delimitation exercise in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, citing improvement in the internal security situation.

Manch convener and Supreme Court Convener, Upamanyu Hazarika, on Saturday said that the notification for delimitation of constituencies in the Northeastern states, including Assam, by the Centre would create a fresh set of complications detrimental to the interests of the indigenous people.

“The basis for this entire exercise is deeply flawed. Firstly, the law and order situation in Assam is very volatile with the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act movement going on in full swing coupled with the agitation by the non-Bodos in the BTAD areas,” Hazarika said.

“Secondly, the entire delimitation exercise is based on the number of voters in any constituency. Leaders of the ruling BJP have admitted that 70 lakh foreigners have been included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and therefore demanded re-verification of NRC. On the other hand, by initiating this de-limitation exercise, they have only shown their duplicity,” he alleged.

The Manch convener said that a correct re-verification of NRC would exclude a large number of foreigners and give the correct picture of the number of citizens/voters per constituency.

“It is only after which should delimitation be carried out. But undertaking the delimitation exercise without an NRC re-verification means that the government and the leaders have no intention for re-verification of NRC,” Hazarika said.

He further said that a delimitation exercise restored parity or equality between constituencies by either increasing the number of constituencies or re-drawing the boundaries of the existing constituencies by keeping the total number of constituencies intact.

“In either situation, particularly in Assam, the indigenous people will stand to lose as the indigenous-dominated constituencies in middle and Upper Assam have less than half the population/the number of voters than in the migrant-dominated constituencies,” Hazarika said.

He further observed that the delimitation exercise being undertaken at this juncture prior to 2021 elections showed that the BJP-AGP alliance is not confident of retaining the indigenous vote, which it got in the earlier election.

“Therefore, they want to reduce the number of seats where the indigenous are in a majority, which will correspondingly reduce the political clout of the indigenous,” he said.

“Such delimitation was stalled in 2008 by the central government itself on the ground that peace and public order was likely to be threatened and now because of an improvement in the security situation, the government has found the situation opportune for this exercise,” the convener added.