Telangana Congress leaders want increase in Assembly seats

Hyderabad: A delegation of elected representatives of Congress party from Telangana region will visit the national capital on Monday to meet the Group of Ministers (GoM) seeking increase in the number of seats in Telangana State.

The decision was taken during a meeting attended by Congress MLAs and MLCs from the Telangana region here on Sunday. Speaking to media persons later, National Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman and Sanathnagar MLA Marri Sashidhar Reddy said that the GoM would be requested to increase the number of Assembly constituencies in Telangana State to 153, by adding 34 more seats. This will lead to unanimity in all 17 Lok Sabha segments having nine Assembly seats each.

The T-Congress delegation would request the GoM to include this point in its report to be submitted to the Union Cabinet. Sashidhar Reddy said that the increase in number of seats should be mentioned in the Telangana Bill itself.

It may be mentioned that the demand of Telangana-Congress leaders might require the approval of Delimitation Commission of India as the present boundaries of both Assembly and Parliament seats were drawn in 2008 based on the 2001 Census.

The Constitution of India was specifically amended in 2002 not to have delimitation of constituencies till the first census after 2026. Therefore, the Centre might find it difficult to fulfill this demand of T-Congress leaders.