Sushmita Dev draws PM's attention over reduction of seats in Barak Valley

Silchar, Aug 20: At a time when President Droupadi Murmu has approved the delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in Assam and Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma has termed the developments as significant for the state, Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that the chopping of the assembly seats in Barak Valley to 13 seats from 15 seats is detrimental to the electorates from southern Assam.

In the letter addressed to the Prime Minister on Friday, Dev, a frontline Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and former Congress MP from Silchar in the Lok Sabha said, "The Delimitation exercise, notified by the honourable President of India on 16 August 2023, is detrimental to the people of Barak Valley in that the two assembly seats in the districts of Hailakandi and Karimganj have been merged reducing the total number of seats to 13 from 15 seats. The fact that the representation in the assembly has been reduced takes away the most important political safeguard for any community. We in Barak Valley should not be perceived as a colony of Assam as we contribute economically, socially and politically to the progress of the state. Disempowerment of Barak Valley is painful and history will not forgive or forget that Barak Valley has been deprived of political empowerment during your tenure."

Further, taking a potshot at Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, Sushmita said that once the draft delimitation proposal was made public, the Government of Assam chose to lodge its objections to the Election Commission of India. Terming the silence of the State Government in not raising any objections about reducing the seats of the two districts of Hailakandi and Karimganj to be a betrayal to the people of Barak Valley as a betrayal to the voters in southern Assam, Sushmita said that the less populated areas in other parts of Assam gained seats at the cost of Barak Valley.

“I am sure you are aware that the BJP won eight out of the fifteen assembly seats and both the Lok Sabha seats of Silchar and Karimganj in the valley. But the treatment meted out by the Government of Assam is a saga of betrayal. The commitments made to the valley have all turned out to be a bunch of lies.The fact that delimitation cannot be challenged under Article 329 of the Constitution made it even more imperative for the Government of Assam to stand with the people of the valley before it was finalized. What is even a greater shame is that the elected representatives as well as the organization of the BJP were mute spectators to this injustice,” she mentioned in the letter.