The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Congress wants imbalance in allotment of ST seats in State to be set right

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 03, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Congress wants imbalance in allotment of ST seats in State to be set right

Staff Reporter

Bangalore: The Congress on Wednesday urged the Delimitation Commission of India to reserve lower number of Assembly seats than what it had intended in its draft for the Scheduled Tribe candidates in Raichur and Bellary districts, where they had also got one Lok Sabha seat each.

In a memorandum submitted to commission chairman Kuldip Singh, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge and V.S. Ugrappa, MLC and general secretary of the State unit of the party, said that out of seven Assembly constituencies in Raichur district, four seats had been allotted to ST candidates and one to SC candidate, leaving two to the general category.

The leaders said that out of Bellary district's nine Assembly constituency, five seats had been given to Scheduled Tribe candidates and two to Scheduled Caste candidates leaving two to general category.

Population

They said that the population of Scheduled Tribes in the two districts was three lakh and 3.6 lakh and the seats allotted to them were four and five respectively. Mysore district, where the Scheduled Tribe population was three lakh, had been given only one seat for STs.

Later, Mr. Ugrappa deposed before the commission, which resumed its public hearing on delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in Chitradurga, Davangere, Shimoga, Tumkur, Kolar, Bangalore Rural and Bangalore Urban districts.

Mr. Ugrappa urged it to reserve some seats for ST candidates in Kolar and Tumkur districts also.

He said that though these districts had 2.5 lakh and 2 lakh ST population respectively, the community had not been given representation at all in the Assembly.

He also urged the Commission to dereserve some of the Scheduled Caste constituencies such as Malavalli in Mandya district, Pavagada in Tumkur district, Robertsonpet and Bangarpet in Kolar district and Mudigere in Chikmagalur district.

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