The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Assembly constituencies only in name!

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Thursday, Mar 20, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Assembly constituencies only in name!

Delimitation exercise will open a Pandora’s box

Jubilee Hills to now be part of Khairatabad constituency
Constituencies carved sticking to district boundaries

HYDERABAD: The new Assembly constituency of Jubilee Hills does not have Jubilee Hills in it!

Same goes with Sanathnagar constituency as the area does not figure in it as per the delimitation exercise for which a gazette notification has been issued.

Jubilee Hills now falls under the Khairatabad constituency, while Sanathnagar has gone to Kukatpally which in turn has been enjoined to the neighbouring Ranga Reddy district!

These aspects came to the fore when the district election officials began the process of implementing the delimitation rules.

Voter shift

Hyderabad district, which will now have 15 Assembly constituencies, compared to the 13 earlier, has new constituencies in Bahadurpura - carved out of areas delineated from old Charminar and Chandrayanagutta constituencies.

Another one is Jubilee Hills carved out of old Khairatabad and Shaikpet constituencies. Since some areas have gone to R.R. district, the total number of voters in Hyderabad has come down to about 28.5 lakh with the neighbouring district gaining close to 16.5 lakh voters.

R.R. district was carved out of Hyderabad and the constituencies overlapped the district boundaries earlier because delimitation was not done then.

Now, the constituencies have been carved, sticking to the district boundaries with each having a population of 2-2.5 lakh as per the 2001 census, explained GHMC Additional Commissioner (Elections) A. Dharma Reddy.

Separate constituency

The old Malakpet constituency has lost L.B. Nagar , which itself is a separate constituency in R.R. district and old Secunderabad Cantonment constituency has lost Malkajgiri, again an independent constituency in R.R. dist.

Areas “lost”

Other areas “lost” by Hyderabad district include Begumpet, Serilingampally, Alwal, Hayatnagar, Saroornagar and Rajendranagar.

The result is that Hyderabad will have 890 polling stations having given away 1,036 polling stations to Ranga Reddy district.

As many as 353 stations from old Khairatabad, 350 from Malakpet, 204 from Secunderabad Cantonment, 75 from Charminar and 54 from Sanathnagar constituencies will be shifted.

Confusion

These changes have caused some confusion among officials while undertaking the 150 wards delimitation for the GHMC.

However, the GHMC Additional Commissioner (Elections) indicated that efforts were being made to avoid a ward spreading into two Assembly constituencies and also ensure that a polling station too does not straddle between two wards.

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