Justice Kuldeep Singh

HYDERABAD: While MLAs will be busy deciding the fortunes of candidates they will elect to the 31 seats in the now-revived Legislative Council on March 17, the Delimitation Commission will be working during that period to alter their constituencies.

By then, the commission would have completed its regional meetings and its final meeting with the associate members representing political parties and will be preparing to issue the final notification on the delimitation of constituencies.

Rigid stand

It has turned down the plea by political parties to alter the dates of its meetings to hear objections and suggestions on the ground that the MLAs will be preoccupied with Council elections.

Commission Chairman Justice Kuldeep Singh and members — N. Gopala Swamy, Chief Election Commissioner, and A.V.S. Reddy, State Election Commissioner — have informed associate members that they will hold meetings in Tirupati (for Rayalaseema region) on March 6, in Visakhapatnam (for coastal districts up to Guntur) on March 8 and in Hyderabad (Telangana region) on March 9 and 10. On March 11, they will have a final meeting with the associate members.

These meetings were earlier scheduled to be held from February 22 but were postponed due to the delay in conducting hearings in Madhya Pradesh.

The commission is said to be planning to put an end to its delimitation exercise in the State by publishing the final notification in the last week of March.

At least 150 constituencies where a mandal or two each will be delinked to join the contours of a new constituency as a result of the exercise could mean that some sitting MLAs will face problems in securing ticket in the next elections.

Delimited profile

The commission is planning to complete the entire exercise by mid-2007 itself so that even if general elections are to be advanced for some reason, it can be done so in the delimited profile, it is learnt. The commission has completed the exercise in 20 States.

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