No big change in constituency demarcation

No big change is going to take place in the demarcation of constituencies ahead of 12^th national election.

The election commission (EC) will not initiate mentionable change in constituencies’ demarcation as they haven’t received the final report of census.

The primary report on census was released last year, but is hasn’t been finalized yet and EC won’t start the task of constituency demarcation without it. However, in the present demarcation, there’s no balance of voters in existing 150 seats. No indivisibility is retained in 37 seats as some upazilas have been distributed among various parliamentary seats.

But, EC aimed to finish the task of deciding constituency demarcation within May. Hence, only four months remains ahead of them. Within this short span of time, it’s not possible to change the boundary line of parliamentary seats. So, the EC is thinking about holding next national election keeping the old demarcation as the new law permits the old boundary.

According to EC officials, they’re waiting for the final report of census. They don’t know yet about its deadline, but keeping contact with Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics as it’s impossible for them to initiate big change in demarcation without having the report.

About EC’s not initiating the task of constituency demarcation, election commissioner Md Alamgir said, “It’s not right that the task hasn’t started yet. It can be said that the task hadn’t been finished. We’re hopeful of getting it done by May.”

Can they do it without census report? About it the commissioner said, “We could do it whether we get the report or not. There’s a provision of law by which we can do it even if we don’t get the census report.

According to EC officials, there’s no balance of population in many district in the new census. For example, Cumilla and Mymensingh has 11 constituencies each and according to new census the population of the districts are 53,87,000 and 51,00,000 respectively. Tangail has eight constituencies for 40, 00,000 people, while Gazipur has only 5 constituencies for 52, 63,000 people.

According to the specialists, if constituency demarcation issue isn’t solved before the next parliamentary election, it could create complexities. And if there’s deviation of population among the constituencies, then the people will be deprived of government’s allotment to that constituencies.

They said many cases had been filed during the tenure of previous commission regarding boundary of the constituencies. However, they didn’t take it with importance. Still, many constituencies have boundary of 90 km. Some parliamentary seats are formed with three to four upazilas, while some constituencies were formed with small number of voters.

Hence, the election experts urged for solving the issue of constituency demarcation prior to holding next parliamentary election.

@The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on January 22 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque