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Delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies: Guidelines and Methodology

I. Constitutional and Legal Provisions

The Constitution (Eighty-fourth Amendment) Act, 2001 and the Constitution (Eighty-seventh Amendment) Act, 2003 have, inter alia, amended Articles 81, 82, 170, 330 and 332 of the Constitution of India. The cumulative effect of these amendments to the Constitution is that–

(i) the total number of existing seats as allocated to various States1 in the House of the People on the basis of 1971 census shall remain unaltered till the first census to be taken after the year 2026;

(ii) the total number of existing seats in the Legislative Assemblies of all States as fixed on the basis of 1971 census shall also remain unaltered till the first census to be taken after the year 2026;

(iii) the number of seats to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the House of the People and State Legislative Assemblies shall be re-worked out on the basis of 2001 census;

(iv) each State shall be re-delimited into territorial parliamentary and assembly constituencies on the basis of 2001 census and the extent of such constituencies as delimited now shall remain frozen till the first census to be taken after the year 2026; and

(v) the constituencies shall be so re-delimited that population (on the basis of 2001 census) of each parliamentary and assembly constituency in a State shall, so far as practicable, be the same throughout the State.

In pursuance of the aforesaid amendments made to the Constitution by the Constitution (Eighty-fourth Amendment) Act 2001 and the Constitution (Eighty-seventh Amendment) Act, 2003, Parliament has enacted the Delimitation Act, 2002, as amended vide the Delimitation (Amendment) Act, 2003, entrusting the above mentioned tasks at (iii), (iv) and (v) above to the Delimitation Commission to be set up under section 3 of the said Act. The Delimitation Commission so set up has started functioning w.e.f. 04.07.2002 under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Kuldip Singh (former Judge of the Supreme Court of India) with Shri B.B. Tandon, Election Commissioner of India, and the State Election Commissioner of the State concerned as defined in the explanation to Section 3 of the said Act (in respect of the work relating to that State) as ex-officio members.

The Commission shall also associate in its work, in respect of each State, five members of Lok Sabha elected from that State (or all such members if their number is less than five) and five members of the State Legislative Assembly. These Associate Members shall be nominated by the Hon’ble Speakers of the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies concerned. But these Associate Members shall have no voting right.

 

II. Division of States into Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies

The division of each State into assembly and parliamentary constituencies is thus to be made having regard to the total number of existing seats in each State Legislative Assembly and the total number of seats as allocated at present to each State in the House of the People. In other words, each State is to be divided into the same number of assembly constituencies as the total number of existing seats in the State Legislative Assembly and the number of parliamentary constituencies in the State would be equal to the number of seats presently allotted to that State in the House of the People (see First and Second Schedules to the Representation of the People Act 1950).

Further, all constituencies shall, as far as practicable, be geographically compact areas, and in delimiting them regard shall be had to the physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience.

 

III. Population

(i) All assembly and parliamentary constituencies are to be delimited on the basis of the 2001 Census. The census figures of 2001 as published by the Census Commissioner are thus alone to be taken into account for this purpose.

(ii) Each constituency in a State shall be so delimited that the population of all constituencies shall, so far as practicable, be the same throughout the State.

(iii) For this purpose, the total population of the State (2001 Census) shall be divided by the total number of assembly constituencies in the State and the State average per assembly constituency shall thus be obtained. This State average shall be the guiding factor for delimiting the constituencies in such a manner that each constituency, so far as practicable, has an equal population.

(iv) The Delimitation Commission has, however, taken an internal decision that as constituencies cannot be delimited having exactly equal population in all cases, a deviation to the extent of 10 percent plus or minus from the State/district average would be acceptable to the Commission, if the geographical features, means of communication, public convenience, contiguity of the areas and necessity to avoid breaking of administrative units so demand.

 

IV. Administrative Units

Though the population to be taken into account is the population of 2001 Census, the Commission has decided that constituencies shall be delimited having regard to the administrative units, i.e., district/sub divisions/ tehsils/patwar circles, panchayat samitis/panchayats, etc., as in existence on 15th February, 2004. (The Commission had earlier written to all the State Govts. not to disturb the administrative units, as existing on 01.08.2002, till the completion of the delimitation exercise in the State in all respects, but in some cases, the Commission has permitted re-organisation of certain administrative units on sufficient justification and urgency being shown to it.)

 

V. Methodology for Allocation of Assembly Constituencies to the Districts and Delimitation of Assembly Constituencies

(i) The Delimitation Commission has taken decision that, so far as practicable, all assembly constituencies in a district shall be confined within the territorial limits of that district. In other words, an assembly constituency shall not ordinarily extend to more than one district.

(ii) Having regard to the above internal decision of the Delimitation Commission, the first step will be to allocate the number of assembly constituencies to each district on the basis of the total population of that district divided by the average population per constituency as worked out under sub-paragraph (3) of the preceding paragraph. Where the entitlement of a district on the basis of such State average contains a fraction, the fractions more than one-half shall be counted as one and fractions less than one-half shall be ignored.

(iii) As a next step, the average population in each constituency in the district shall be worked out by dividing the total population of the district with the number of seats allocated to that district.

(iv) Then, the areas of the district shall be divided into the requisite number of assembly constituencies having regard to the average population per constituency in the district with a permissible deviation of 10 percent plus or minus from the district average.

(v) In delimiting the assembly constituencies, efforts will be made to ensure that, as far as practicable, sub-divisions/tehsils are kept intact and not unnecessarily broken. Further, in each State, an administrative unit shall need to be identified having regard to the administrative set up of that State which will be adopted as the lowest administrative unit which should not be broken in any case. For example, in the State of Madhya Pradesh, the administrative units are districts, tehsils, revenue inspector circles (RICs) and patwari circles (PCs). If a PC (consisting of a few villages) is adopted as the lowest administrative unit for the purpose of delimitation, the whole of that PC will be kept intact and included in one assembly constituency and the villages contained in that PC will not be divided into different assembly constituencies.

(vi) While delimiting the assembly constituencies on the basis of the administrative units as mentioned above, the contiguity of such administrative units will be the basic requirement, so that no constituency has an enclave/island within it of certain areas belonging to another constituency and having no contiguity to the other areas of that latter constituency.

(vii) Further, apart from contiguity, geographical features, better connectivity, means of communication, public convenience will also be kept in view and areas divided by rivers or hilly ranges or forests or ravines and other such natural barriers will not be put in the same constituency.

(viii) As far as possible, the delimitation of the constituencies in a district shall be done starting from North to North-West and then proceeding in a zig-zag manner to end at the Southern side.

 

VI. Delimitation of Parliamentary Constituencies

Each parliamentary constituency in a State shall be an integral multiple of the assembly constituencies comprised therein. No assembly constituency shall extend to more than one parliamentary constituency.

 

VII. Reservation of Seats for SCs and STs

(i) Seats have to be reserved for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population to the total population of the State.

(ii) This allocation of seats for the SCs and STs is to be worked out separately both for the assembly and parliamentary constituencies in each State, on the basis of 2001 Census.

(iii) Under section 9(1)(d) of the Delimitation Act 2002, seats for the STs are to be reserved in the constituencies in which the percentage of their population to the total population is the largest. Therefore, after all the assembly constituencies in the State have been delimited, the constituencies to be reserved for STs will be those where the percentage of the ST population to the total population of the constituencies is the largest, in descending order equal to the number of constituencies to be reserved for STs.

(iv) Under section 9(1)(c) of the said Act, the constituencies for SCs are to be distributed in different parts of the State and seats are to be reserved for SCs in those constituencies where the percentage of their population to the total population is comparatively large. Therefore, while working out the allocation of total number of seats for each district as mentioned above, the number of seats to be reserved for SCs in those districts will also have to be worked out separately. Subsequently, SC seats will be reserved in those constituencies in the district in which, so far as practicable, the percentage of their population to the total population is the largest, in descending order equal to the number of SC seats in the district concerned.

 

VIII. Preparation of Working Paper

A working paper will be prepared by the office of the Delimitation Commission having regard to the above principles and internal decisions of the Delimitation Commission. The working paper will consist of seven papers containing: -

i) Paper I – District-wise 2001 population data and entitlement of assembly seats for each district;

ii) Paper II – Entitlement of seats for scheduled castes in the assembly and distribution of SC seats among the districts;

iii) Paper III – SC population in the proposed assembly constituencies and seats proposed to be reserved for SCs;

iv) Paper IV – ST population in the proposed assembly constituencies and seats proposed to be reserved for STs;

v) Paper V – Abstract statement of proposed assembly constituencies and total, SC and ST population in each constituency;

vi) Paper VI – District-wise statement showing details of extent, total/SC/ST population in each of the proposed assembly constituencies;

vii) Paper VII – Proposed Lok Sabha constituencies and their extent in terms of proposed assembly constituencies.

 

IX. Working Paper – Approval By the Commission

Preparation of Working Paper and its approval by Delimitation Commission will be done into two stages. In the first stage, Papers I and II showing the proposed allocation of Assembly seats to various districts in the States and further showing the proposed distribution of seats for Scheduled Castes among the various districts will be prepared by the office. Soon after Papers I and II are prepared by the office, the same will be submitted to the Chairman, Election Commissioner of India and the State Election Commissioner of that State, who are ex-officio Members, and a meeting will be held of the full Commission to tentatively approve these Papers I and II. The Commission has now decided to consult Associate Members by calling their first meeting soon after Papers I and II have been tentatively prepared by the Commission. Normally the Chief Electoral Officer of the State concerned will also be directed to attend such meeting to clarify any point relating to data and maps and any other related matter.

Thereafter, the remaining Papers III to VII showing the proposed territorial extent of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies and the constituencies which are proposed to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be prepared by the office and approved tentatively by the Commission after taking into consideration suggestions made by the Associate Members at the aforesaid first meeting. After approving the tentative proposals in the complete Working Paper (containing Papers I to VII), the Commission will direct the Secretariat to send copies of the complete Working Paper to the Associate Members who will be given a reasonable time to study the proposals and to come with their suggestions for further meeting(s) in the Commission. The CEO of the concerned State will provide the Associate Members with copies of required data and maps.

 

X. Meeting with Associate Members

As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the Commission will hold its first meeting with the Associate Members for considering Papers I and II showing the proposed allocation of Assembly seats to various districts in the States and further showing the proposed distribution of seats for Scheduled Castes among the various districts. The Commission will then hold further meeting(s) with Associate Members after the remaining papers (Papers III to VII) of the Working Paper showing the proposed territorial extent of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies and the constituencies which are proposed to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been prepared by the Commission after taking into consideration suggestions made by the Associate Members at the aforesaid first meeting. At the second round of meeting(s) of the Commission with the Associate Members (AMs), their suggestions with regard to the Working Paper will be duly considered, and the draft proposals of the Commission will then be prepared in the light of the suggestions of the AMs. A copy of the draft proposals so prepared will be sent to each of the AMs and they may give a dissenting note in respect of any of the draft proposals, if they so desire.

 

XI. Draft Proposals – Notification

The draft proposals of the Commission shall then be published in the Gazette of India and the concerned State’s Gazette along with the dissenting notes, if any, submitted by the Associate Members and who desire publication thereof. These shall also be published at least in two vernacular newspapers. The CEO and DEOs and all election authorities will be directed to make copies of the notification containing the draft proposals available to all those who may ask for it. Widest publicity will be given through print and electronic media. A notice will also be issued specifying a date on or before which the public is requested to send their objections and suggestions to the proposals.

After the specified date, the suggestions and objections received will be tabulated and made into sets and distributed to all Members of the Commission including Associate Members.

 

XII. Public Sittings

After the last date for submitting suggestions and objections is over, the Commission will hold public sittings at one or more places in the State to hear the public in person. Wide publicity will be given to those sittings.

 

XIII. Final Orders

After hearing the public, the Commission will hold a final meeting attended by Associate Members (though they have no right to vote) to consider all suggestions received in writing as well as orally made at the public sittings and decide the modifications that are required to be made to the draft proposals and prepare a final order. The final order thus prepared, both for assembly constituencies and parliamentary constituencies of the State, will be signed by the full Commission and the Secretary to the Delimitation Commission will cause the final orders to be published in the Gazette of India and State Gazette. The final orders are also required to be published in two vernacular news papers in the State concerned. After the final orders are published, the President of India shall be requested to issue a notification specifying a date from which the said orders shall come into force. The copies of those orders shall also be laid before the House of the People and the State Legislative Assembly concerned, but no modification shall be permissible therein by them.

(Shangara Ram) Secretary

 

* Taken from the Website of the Delimitation Commission. www.delimitation-india.com/Procedure/Delimitation_ of_Constituencies.pdf

Footnote:

1. ‘State’ here does not include the State of Jammu and Kashmir, but includes the National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Pondicherry.

 

Extract From the Lok Sabha Debate

ON 11 March 2008, the ‘Disapproval of Delimitation (Amendment) Ordinance 2008’, ‘Delimitation (Amendment) Bill 2008’ and ‘Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill 2008’, were debated in the Lok Sabha.

The Parliament, under the Delimitation Act, 2002, had constituted the Fourth Delimitation Commission under the Chairpersonship of Retd. Justice Kuldip Singh to carry out the delimitation work with respect to 25 states/union territories. As, during the exercise, certain issues relating to delimitation came to the fore, it was decided to amend the Delimitation Act 2002 by the promulgation of an ordinance and to insert new sections 10A and 10B in the Representation of People Act to ‘empower deferment of delimitation exercise in a state in certain cases and to nullify the final order of the commission in respect of the state of Jharkhand.’

Accordingly, in February 2008, it was decided to defer the delimitation exercise in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland and nullify the orders in the case of Jharkhand. Further, it was decided to make the orders in all the remaining states/union territories effective immediately. Finally, it was decided that the delimitation exercise in the North East states, currently deferred because of prevailing conditions, would be taken up as soon as possible.

It may be noted that the orders of the Delimitation Commission are final and beyond judicial scrutiny. As such, the parliamentary debate only was to approve/disapprove the proposed amendments. However, different MPs, used the opportunity to opine on all aspects of the delimitation exercise – the composition of the commission, the process followed and the methodology employed, the problems arising thereof both in the drawing up of respective boundary lines and deciding on how many and which Parliament/assembly constituencies are to be reserved. The issue assumes critical importance because of the decision to freeze the number of MPs and the freshly drawn boundary lines till after the Census of 2031. Stated sharply, this exercise freezes the political map of India for the next three decades.

Even as the bulk of the discussions involve individual MPs expressing their discomfort/unease with the exercise as it relates to their specific constituencies, they have also raised important issues of principle and methodology of delimitation, including questioning the prevailing consensus on keeping the orders of the Delimitation Commission beyond parliamentary and judicial review.

Presented below are selected extracts from the debate. Sections in Hindi have been translated.

Prabodh Panda (Midnapore) – About the delimitation, there is a lot of resentment in different sections of the country. This sort of legislation should have been first discussed in Parliament.

Bachi Singh Rawat (Almora) – Our state has 13 districts of which nine are hilly, two plains and two mixed. The earlier delimitation had taken place with respect to the 1971 Census. Given the processes of development and migration to the plain areas, the current delimitation has resulted in a reduction of nine seats in the hill areas and an increase in the number of plains constituencies. …Earlier, it had been agreed to freeze the number of seats in different states so as to not disturb existing inter-state parity. We feel that a similar exercise should be done with respect to districts within a state and delimitation should be based on only scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and geographical area.

Rameshwar Oraon (Lohargada, Jharkhand) – In 1951, the undivided state of Bihar had 32 reserved seats for scheduled tribes. The 1976 delimitation reduced this number to 28 assembly and five parliament seats. Following the 2001 Census, these numbers were further reducing to 22 and four respectively. It needs to be investigated as to why the number of tribal seats/population is declining. We feel that there are flaws in the census exercise, with officials not going/misreporting because of troubled situation in the region. That is why we are happy that the delimitation orders for the state stand nullified.

Shailendra Kumar (Chayal, Uttar Pradesh) – My parliamentary constituency, which was earlier spread over three districts, now falls in only two. Each constituency should fall within only one district so that development work can be coordinated.

Vijay Krishan (Barh) – Since the orders of the Delimitation Commission cannot be challenged in court, even if the commission fails to follow the principles laid down by Parliament, what is the use of this debate?

B. Mahtab (Cuttack) – In Chattisgarh, of the total 11 seats for the Lok Sabha, the reserved seats for scheduled castes have come down from two to one. Similarly, of the 90 assembly seats, while the number of reserved seats for scheduled castes have remained at the earlier 10 after the delimitation exercise, the reserved seats for scheduled tribes have come down from 34 earlier to 29 now. Why have you discriminated against Chattisgarh? Why are you only doing it (nullifying the DC orders) only for Jharkhand? It may be due to political considerations. But this is a clear case which will go to the court of law… Therefore, I would say that it is only political expediency which seems to have prevailed over this government due to which you have deferred the exercise of delimitation in Jharkhand.

[Referring to the decision to schedule the next delimitation exercise to 2026, the member pointed out...] There is difference that the large numbers of representatives will be representing urban areas and the rural areas will be relegated to the background. This will create another big problem.

Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi (Minister for Parliamentary Affairs) – My dear friend, Vijayji, very genuinely said that some important members of the government tried to convey the message in the Central Hall that delimitation may not be implemented. It is true, Sir. I take the full responsibility. I did talk to many senior leaders and said not to worry, that delimitation will not be implemented because a lot of litigations are going on, a lot of problems are going on.

I must honestly say, not because I want to score a political point, very emphatically, very systematically with all the logic, that the distinguished principal Opposition in Parliament and also our Left parties did feel and said very correctly that the Delimitation Commission’s entire effort and the outcome should not be delayed at any moment and it should come to the House at the earliest. Then Sir, I do not like to mention the name of the party, even when we were trying to consult all the parties, even sent somebody to the highest court of law to see that the government is compelled to do it at the earliest.

Sir, you tell us, as a responsible government do we have any other option but to lay it at the earliest time because we do not like to put ourselves in a situation that we are defying the constitutional obligation except on the issue leading to the litigation in court. … we are only discharging the constitutional obligation.

It is a fact that every delimitation hits some members, some districts, some constituencies, some parties. That is individual, but constitutional merit is different.

I know many colleagues whose constituencies are divided into two or three parts in spite of all arguments. But ultimate outcome of the Delimitation Commission, which is a constitutional body, we cannot disrespect, we cannot defy and we cannot get away with it.

Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu (Rajapur) – I really and strongly object to the Ordinance itself. When Parliament had passed the Act, there was no need really for us to make any other intervention and go into other issues… If we, in case of Jharkhand, now go into the issue and revisit the entire recommendations of the Delimitation Commission, using our own wisdom, are we not in fact challenging the entire premise on which delimitation has worked? Having accepted the Delimitation Commission’s recommendations in respect of the other states, to make an exception for Jharkhand, in my opinion defies the real logic for which the commission is set up by the framers of the Constitution.

My next issue is this. We are accepting a concept of smaller states. We are going in for a smaller revenue district. But, you are going for larger constituencies for Members of Parliament. What is the logic?

Thokchom Meinya (Inner Manipur) – In our case we are against the census operations. The Census Report of 2001 was not a genuine one. As per the above census, in one district, the rise in population was more than 168 per cent. In other cases also, it was like that. When we placed our objections before the Census General of India, the district in which the population increase was 168 per cent was reduced to 39 per cent. We were wondering what type of procedure was adopted and how they have made an adjustment like that.

Kiren Rijiju (Arunachal West) – You talk about population control, family planning and you always lay yardsticks where you will give more seats and money where the area is more populated. I want to suggest that when you are determining the constituencies, population, of course, in important. After all, it is the people who elect. But the criteria should be 50:50, that is land mass and man mass.

Arun Kumar Sarma (Lakhimpur, Assam) – In North East, specially in Assam, in addition to inter-constituency and inter-state migration, there is migration from across the border because of which there is shift in demography. So far, despite agreement, the process of preparing the National Register of Citizens has not yet started. Until the genuine Indian citizens are identified, this process of delimitation will be unconstitutional.

H.R. Bharadwaj (Minister of Law and Justice) – In 2002, when the Delimitation Commission was set up, the due role for MPs was not given. This all of us agree. We cannot criticize the Delimitation Commission or the Election Commission, but this debate is taking place because MPs are political and their views have been disregarded. Soon after I assumed charge, I started a process of consultation across parties, because this is not a partisan issue.

When we passed the Delimitation Act 2002, we should have given greater thought to the role of MPs in the formulation of guidelines. This we did not do.

Now, as the members have pointed out, there are many anomalies and difficulties – in hill/plain areas, the size of MP constituencies, and so on. We know that in new states like Uttarakhand, if the seats in the hilly tracts come down, there will be anger. Similar problems are there in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh between the proportion of reserved and general seats. Because we did not adequately apply our minds, we are facing this problem today.

Like Jharkhand, I was keen to act on Chattisgarh, but I did not receive the necessary cooperation. I also wanted to continue with the old lists till all these problems had been satisfactorily resolved. But, if political parties charge that I am deliberately delaying implimentation of the orders of the commission, then I have to defer to them, even if I believe that the damage is to all.

I cannot criticize the Delimitation Commission because you know the ground reality. I can only do so when a representation comes. Delimitation Commission is a statutory body constituted by an act of Parliament. Power is with the Parliament. We could lay down different guidelines. When population was made a criterion, what could the Delimitation Commission do?

You will remember, I offered that let us amend the Constitution in order to give protection to rural areas and hilly areas, but nobody agreed for an amendment of this law by any means. Since this is a matter which is always run by consensus, nothing was done as a matter of adventure. So no motive should be imputed when we are dealing with an unusual situation.

Now you have given your views. We will gain from your experience. There are some genuine grievances left, but God willing solutions will be found. Now these delimited constituencies have already come into force. So, the MPs will know their constituencies and there is still time for the elections. That is a reality. Until it is de-notified in another exercise by the Parliament, this is the final thing.

I would say that everything was done according to the provisions of the Delimitation Act. You cannot make a departure from it. In future, we can bring a better law on delimitation and say that the voice of the MPs will have a greater say. I will be happy because it concerns them; the civil servants do not contest elections. So let us think about it.