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Venkaiah prods Centre for more Assembly seats
Contradicting the stand of the Union government on delimitation of the Assembly constituencies in the two Telugu States, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu here on Wednesday said though there was no provision as of now to increase the Assembly constituencies in both the States as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, it was the duty of the Centre to explore
New Delhi: Contradicting the stand of the Union government on delimitation of the Assembly constituencies in the two Telugu States, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu here on Wednesday said though there was no provision as of now to increase the Assembly constituencies in both the States as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, it was the duty of the Centre to explore possible ways for the same.
He said though there was no provision as such, the government was duty bound to implement the promise incorporated in the Act. The Attorney General had given his opinion against the same when the Union Law Ministry had asked whether it could resort to the same, in the past. That was a legal opinion and one had to respect it, he added.
However, as the promise was made by Parliament to the two Telugu States and as an Act had come into force, it was the duty of the Centre to explore possible ways and hence, he said, he had sought the Union Home Ministry to intervene and pave way for the law to be changed. Accordingly, a Cabinet note was in the process of being prepared in the direction, he said on Wednesday.
Only on Tuesday, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir replied - which he had been maintaining in the last two years - that delimitation would not be undertaken till 2026 in reply to a query of TRS MP K Prabhakar Reddy. He said as per the opinion of the Attorney General, delimitation was not possible now under Article 170(3) of the Constitution and till after the first census was published post-2026.
Hence, unless the Article 170(3) was amended to be in line with Section 26 of the Reorganisation Act, the increase in the number of seats could not be given effect. The delimitation was important to the Chief Ministers of both the States and also to the ruling parties as both have engineered large scale defections from the Opposition ranks on the promise of accommodating them in the next elections with tickets as the numbers would go up. Telangana would have 153 Assembly seats instead of the 119 it had now and AP Assembly strength would go up to 225 from the present 175.
