The Election Commission’s delimitation exercise, and the Assam government’s decision to merge four districts and redraw administrative boundaries in 14 areas, have sparked fresh concerns among Bengali-origin Muslims. The fear is that these decisions will have an adverse impact on the electoral influence of the community in around 35 assembly constituencies.
BJP leader and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s remarks have done little to assuage such fears. On the day he announced the decision to merge four districts with four others, Sarma said he could not publicly disclose the precise reasons. The next day, he told the media that the Assam Agitation and the NRC exercise did not “live up to expectations”. “Delimitation could be the exercise which would safeguard the state’s future,” he said.
