EC ready for LS polls after Aug. 31

By OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, May 23: The Election Commission is ready to hold Lok Sabha elections as per the newly redrawn constituencies any time after August 31, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N. Gopalaswami said here on Friday.

"Our electoral rolls, revised according to the newly delimited constituencies, will be ready by August 31," the CEC told reporters when asked whether the commission was ready to conduct Lok Sabha elections as per the redrawn constituencies. The UPA government's term will end in May 2009. A few months ago, law minister H.R. Bharadwaj has said that it would take the EC at least six-to-eight months to redraw the constituencies.

Mr Gopalaswami was addressing a press conference along with Justice Kuldip Singh, chairman of Delimitation Commission, which has completed the delimitation work in the entire country except in five states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Jharkhand. Karnataka, where the Assembly polls were concluded on Thursday, was the first state to go to polls as per the redrawn constituencies.

Asked whether he was satisfied with the turnout in the Karnataka Assembly polls, Mr Gopalaswamy said, "I will not answer that question today because the counting is scheduled for Sunday."

Speaking about the delimitation process, Justice Singh said that the government should think of rotating Scheduled Castes constituencies which have been reserved for several decades. He said, "This should not happen and there should be some methodology."

"The Election Commission recommends that the government may consider incorporating suitable provisions in law to provide for rotation in the reservation of SC constituencies," he said.

Asked whether political parties would accept the proposal, Justice Singh said that it was a suggestion by the Commission and it was up to the government to decide. Strongly advocating that constituencies should be redrawn after every 10 years, he said that the political parties should not make "hue and cry" as the present exercise based on 2001 census has been undertaken after 30 years.

"The Commission is firmly of the view that delimitation should be carried out after every census, so that readjustment of the constituencies, including changes and alterations, are not too extensive and the value of electoral vote remains more or less of equal weight," Justice Singh said.