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Delimitation panel to hold sittings on June 17, 18

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI May 29. The last phase of consultations to redraw boundaries of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies in the State will begin in mid-June, with the Delimitation Commission holding sittings in Chennai on June 17 and 18.

The periodic exercise, taken up after the census data is compiled and released, seeks to redistribute population in each State, so that all constituencies have approximately equal number of people. According to the Registrar-General of India, the population of Tamil Nadu stands at 6,21,10,839 as per the 2001census. This will be roughly `divided' among 234 Assembly constituencies, the State Election Commissioner, V.Palanichamy, told presspersons here today.

The Commission had already listed out some constituencies, such as Villivakkam, which have unmanageably large populations and some, where boundaries cut across panchayats and hamlets.

On June 17, the Commission chairman, Kuldeep Singh, and the Election Commissioner, Tandon, will hold discussions with the SEC. The same afternoon, the Commission will hear six national and five State parties. The next day the Commission will hear its associate members from the State — five MPs and five MLAs.

Once the sittings are completed and the views considered, the Commission would release `Paper One' - a document with the redrawn boundaries of the Assembly constituencies. The work is expected to be completed by year-end. Later, another document, `Paper Two' would be released, which would specify the number of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Mr. Palanichamy said the Registrar-General was expected to release constituency-wise population of SCs and STs by September. ``Once this is completed, the Commission would be in a position to determine how many constituencies need to be in the reserved list proportionate to their population,'' he said. After the 1971 census, there were 42 such constituencies. In 1991, this number went up to 45.

Failure to file returns

Commenting on local body elections — the prime responsibility of the State Election Commission — Mr. Palanichamy said of the 58,712 candidates, who contested the last urban local body elections, only 35,901 submitted detailed account of expenses incurred by them during the campaign. As many as 8,115 failed to do so. Replies are awaited from the rest. But all victorious candidates filed their returns.

On the lack of any meaningful elections in the Dalit-reserved panchayats of Pappapatti, Keeripatti, Kottakachiyendhal and Nattarmangalam, he said the initiative to break the deadlock should come from parties. In his opinion, parties should field candidates to ensure that there was no trouble from outside forces. ``You all know what the problem there is,'' he said when asked why the elections to panchayats there were not meaningful.

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