Panel to decide on pleas in two months: CEC

Madurai, May 19 (UNI) Faced with an avalanche of demands for retention of existing Assembly seats and redistribution of reserved Lok Sabha constituencies in the state following the draft proposals of the Delimitation Commission, CEC N Gopalswami today said the panel will take a decision on the pleas in two months.

Retention of certain well known constituencies, divided and merged with neighbouring ones, and proportionate allocation of reserved Lok Sabha seats, now bunched in a few districts, dominated the proceedings of the Commission's public sitting, chaired by the CEC here for the southern districts.

At a brief interaction with mediapersons at the close of the marathon public hearing, he said a 'rational' approach would be arrived on redistribution of the reserved Lok Sabha constituencies as well.

To enable this, representatives of Dalit parties and organisations were offered enough opportunity to put across their views.

He said more representations were received here than the first sitting held at Coimbatore. Roughly about 200 were received today, he added.

Cutting across political affiliations, leaders and district-level functionaries of various political parties demanded retention of Padmanabhapuram in Kanniyakumari district, Theni, a district headquarters town, Mudukulathur in Ramanathapuram district, Ilayankudi in Sivaganga district and Sedapatti in this district among others.

Divisions and mergers as per the draft proposals were described as faulty since revenue units had been tampered with causing inconvenience to the public.

Ed: Pls Pick up suitably from earlier series.

UNI