Dhumal terms HPCC's remarks on delimitation ''political naivety''

Shimla, Jan 13 (UNI) Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister P K Dhumal today refuted HP Congress Committee (HPCC) chief's claim that BJP was responsible for reducing the assembly seats in Kangra district, saying this was proof of her ''political naivety and immaturity''.

''While the whole delimitation process, including hearings and notification, had been completed during the tenure of Congress Governments, both at the Centre and state, the HPCC Chief is blaming the BJP for the reduction of the seats,'' he said in a release here.

The HPCC chief had claimed at a press conference yesterday that the infighting within the BJP was responsible for the reduction of the seats in the district, saying Mr Dhumal had been successful in getting former union minister Shanta Kumar's Sulah assembly seat merged with other adjoining constituencies.

The Delimitation Commission of India's notification on Wednesday had reduced the number of assembly seats in Kangra district to 15 from 16, while increasing the number of reserved seats to 17 from 16, besides reserving some key assembly constituencies, including that of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's Rohru constituency.

Mr Dhumal dared the HPCC Chief to make public any letter she had written to the Commission wherein she had urged it not to reduce assembly seats despite a fall in the population of the district.

Ms Viplove would do well to clarify whether she had urged the Commission members not to reduce the assembly when they had visited Kangra, Mandi and Shimla in March last year, he said.

Despite being a Rajya Sabha member, the HPCC chief had perhaps forgotten that the Parliament had passed a resolution in 2005 for carrying out the delimitation process as per the 2001 census instead of 1991 census, he said.

Mr Dhumal said the Commission, in its first meeting held here in August 2005, had chosen Hari Narain Saini as its associate member instead of Mr Jai Ram Thakur as suggested by the BJP along with Congress' Vidya Stokes, Harsh Mahajan and Chander Kumar.

UNI