Strong protest against Centre's stand on raising Assembly seats

Hyderabad: Strongly protesting the announcement of the Centre that the Assembly constituencies in the two Telugu States would be increased only after 2031, Telangana State Planning Board vice-chairman B Vinod Kumar on Wednesday urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to take up the delimitation decision during the present session of Parliament.

He wrote a letter to Shah registering strong protest on the latest decision of the Centre. Kumar referring to the statement of Union Minister Nityanand Rai that unless and until Article 170 of the Constitution was amended in line with Section 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 (hereinafter referred to as "AP Reorganisation Act"), the number of seats cannot be increased.

Rai said that Section 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 was only an enabling provision and its spirit was only to increase the seats in the legislative assembly of Telangana from 119 to 153 and from 175 to 225 in the legislative Assembly of AP, but unfortunately instead of "not withstanding the provisions contained in article 170 of the Constitution" the words "subject to the provisions contained in Article 170 of the Constitution" were inadvertently mentioned in Section 26(1) of the Act.

Kumar recalled that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested for increasing the seats in the legislative assembly based on Section 26 of the AP Reorganisation Act. The issue was referred to the Law ministry to elicit its views, but unfortunately it had taken a view that since the language of Section 26(1) states that the said section is "subject to the provisions of Article 170", it would not be possible to increase the number of assembly seats unless Article 170 is amended.

"I have been a two-time member of the Lok Sabha---both in the 14th and 16th Lok Sabha---and was closely involved in this issue. A series of meetings were held between the then Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and the Law Secretary and came to a conclusion that a simple amendment to Section 26 will suffice without any amendment to Art 170," he said.

However, Kumar said that unfortunately, for reasons best known to the government, the Home ministry has not taken any steps in this regard. "If your ministry has the political will it is easily possible for you to introduce an amendment bill to Section 26 of the AP Reorganisation Act in this monsoon session and fulfil the promise," he stated.