MJF dismisses addition of constituencies
A senior leader of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has dismissed the whole constituency delineation exercise claiming that it does not meet their demands.
On the day the government-formed commission submitted report advising to increase number of constituencies by 35 – including 28 for Terai districts - Kishore Kumar Biswas, vice president of MJF, told BBC Nepali Service that their demand was not for re-constitution of constituencies of Terai, hill or mountains but that for "fully proportional representation-based elections."
"We never demanded this Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission (ECDC). We had, in fact, called for its disbanding," said Biswas, adding, "Instead of solving Terai problems, this will further flare-up the agitation."
Biswas said that MJF had three major demands – fully PR based elections for Constituent Assembly; guarantee of ethnic self determination rights with the formation of Madhes autonomous region; and declaration that
He also termed Prime Minister's two addresses to resolve Madhes agitation as "incomplete, inadequate and unclear." Biswas said that the MJF still wants to resolve the problems through dialogue.
He also refuted charges that MJF was heading towards criminalisation of politics on the backdrop of March 21 Gaur carnage when 28 Maoist activists were killed. He accused the Maoists' arrogance of weapons and government's indifference as being responsible for all the incidents of "Nepalgunj, Lahan, Bhairahawa leading up to Gaur."
The MJF leader's reaction to the reconstitution of electoral constituencies has come in the wake of submission of report by the ECDC, which has advised increasing the number of constituencies for the "First-Past-The-Post (FPTP)" system to 240 from existing 205.
The Commission headed by former judge of Supreme Court Arjun Prasad Singh has fixed 116 constituencies for Terai districts and 124 constituencies for hilly and mountainous districts. Earlier, in Terai districts there were 88 constituencies; in hilly districts there were 95 constituencies; and in mountain districts there were 22 constituencies.
Mountain Region Also Piqued
Singh Commission, however, did not increase the number of constituencies in mountain districts. This has also touched the nerves of leaders from mountain region. A UML leader from Humla district Gorakh Bahadur Bogati told Kantipur FM that this has "devalued" the geographic distinction of mountain region. "Even in my constituency, it takes me three months to visit all villages," he said, adding that these difficulties were ignored while increasing the constituencies.
The Commission has made the recommendations as per the decision of eight parties and subsequent amendment of interim constitution to increase the number of electoral constituencies in Terai as per the first amendment of the interim constitution. The first amendment was made in the wake of agitation in Terai led by MJF in January and February this year.
As per the first amendment of the interim constitution, the CA elections will be held on mixed system – half the seats through FPTP and other half through the PR system. In addition to them, 17 seats would be nominated to include personalities from various walks of life. This actually means that there will be 497 seats in total for the CA.
