Telangana Congress writes to EC demanding amendments in Delimitation Act, 2008

Demanding amendments in Delimitation (Amendment) Act, 2008, Telangana Congress on Sunday wrote to Election Commission to provide legal notice to both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana separately.

Marri Shashidhar Reddy, Senior Congress Leader of Telangana Congress told , "Election Commission's decision to conduct the elections to the 294-member West Bengal Assembly in 8 phases invited sharp criticism from all non-BJP parties, openly questioning if it was done on the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minster Amit Shah?"

The Congress leader alleged that EC under pressure from Telangana Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao issued an 'unconstitutional' notification to pave way for the premature dissolution of the state assembly and early elections in December.

"A lesser-known fact is that even in the past, ECI had succumbed to the pressure of a lesser political entity, the Telangana CM Chandrasekhar Rao in 2018, issued an unconstitutional notification to pave way for the premature dissolution of the state assembly and early elections in December, which was actually due five months later with the Lok Sabha polls," he said.

Shashidhar said that after the formation of Telangana, seven revenue Mondala of the state have been transferred to Andhra Pradesh as they were going to be submerged with the construction of the Polavaram Project.

"So, with the insistence from Andhra Pradesh, an amendment was made to the Andhra Pradesh State Reorgsation Act in July 2014. As a result of this, voters from three assembly constituencies of Telangana have then become the residents of Andhra Pradesh."

According to the Congress leader, the 'logical thing' would have been to straight away amend the 2008 Delimitation Order but instead, the action of the Home Ministry to get a Presidential Order issued under section 108 of the APR Act, which gave the power to remove difficulties to the President, was totally 'illogical'.

"They failed to understand that just as rules do not override an Act, the provisions of an Act cannot override Constitutional provisions. The transferred areas were included as parts of two Assembly constituencies of AP, which technically nothing but delimitation, which is against the provisions of Art 170 and hence unconstitutional," he said.

"Then there was a change in the name of one of the transferred Mandals - from Nellipaka to Etpaka, which was notified by AP. Citing this ECI sought the views of MHA and it was conveyed, in consultation with the Law Ministry that necessary updation of the 2008 Order under Section 11 of the Delimitation Act, which allows updating of the name change but not any change in boundaries or extent of any constituency," he added.

The Congress leader said that Election Commission, however, "deemed fit to issue a notification dated September 22, 2018, relying on the powers conferred by Section 9(b) of the Representation of People Act, 1950, which only provides for change of name.

"It is imperative for the Election Commission of India to initiate suitable steps to appropriately amend Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 2008 and issue constitutionally and Legally valid notifications separately for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, to replace the illegal notification dated 22.09.2018. I am writing to EC demanding this," he added.

( With inputs from ANI )