National
Constituency will be delineated in a dispute-free manner: CDC Chief
Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission (CDC) Chairperson Kamal Narayan Das has said that the electoral constituencies would be delineated for the election of federal parliament and provincial parliament in a dispute-free manner.Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission (CDC) Chairperson Kamal Narayan Das has said that the electoral constituencies would be delineated for the election of federal parliament and provincial parliament in a dispute-free manner.
“Nothing is uncontroversial, but disputes should be minimised,” said former Supreme Court Justice Das, adding, “We will try to work out so as to make it free of dispute.”
“It has been seen that the constitution has put a huge trust on the Commission. We will try our best to live up to the trust granted by the constitution,” he said.
Speaking at a press conference organised on Wednesday to inform that the Commission has commenced its work, Das expressed his commitment that the Commission would submit the report of delineating the constituency within 21 days.
The Cabinet meeting on July 20 had formed a five-member CDC under the headship of Das.
After taking oath of office and secrecy on July 23, the newly appointed officials had held a meeting with some lawmakers regarding confusion over some provisions of Constitution.
The Commission sought more clarification on the issue of number of districts as the Constitution states that the country has 75 districts. However, the separation of Nawalparasi and Rukum has made it seem like there are 77 districts.
The Commission has to delineate 165 constituencies with a minimum one electoral constituency in each district for the federal parliamentary election.
CDC spokesperson Ganesh Raj Karki said that the constituency would be delineated by taking population as the primary basis and geography as secondary according to the Constitution.
The CDC has to delineate 165 electoral constituencies for federal parliament and 330 constituencies for provincial parliament.
As per the constitutional provision, any decisions taken by the CDC cannot be raised in any court.
After receiving CDC’s report, the government should send it to Parliament, which then will be forwarded to the Election Commission.
Madhav Adhikari, Bishwo Kalyan Parajuli and Ganesh Raj Karki are the members of the CDC with Begendra Sharma as member secretary.
Adhikari is a geographer, Parajuli is professor of sociology at the Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara, Karki is retired bureaucrat and Sharma, a government secretary, is the regional administrator based in Pokhara, Kaski.
The CDC was formed as per Article 286 of the constitution, which states: the government shall form a commission headed by a retired justice of the Supreme Court with respect to the elections to provincial and federal parliaments and one geographer, one sociologist/anthropologist, one expert of administration or law will be its members with a secretary-level serving bureaucrat as member secretary.