The Election Commission will fix a quota of parliamentary seats for each district based on population and area, according to a new proposal to be sent to the government for amendment to the delimitation law.
The commission will propose the amendment to strike a balance between the parliament seats in rural and urban areas in terms of population against the backdrop of rural-to-urban migration.
According to the plan, the next general election would be held after delimitation of the constituencies as the draft laws suggested completion of delimitation 12 months inside publication of census report.
The next population and housing census would be held across the country from March 15-19 next year.
The Delimitation of Constituencies Ordinance 1976 has a provision for mandatory delimitation of boundaries after every census to bring about a balance in accordance with the increased population.
The Election Commission in its draft proposal suggested that the parliamentary seats should be allocated at district level based on population quota.
After the allocation of seats against particular district, the constituencies would be demarcated within the jurisdiction of the particular district. The draft also proposed that rules for allocating seats at district level would be formulated by the Election Commission.
EC is planning to invite suggestions from the political parties about the draft before sending it to the government for passing a law.
Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda earlier told reporters said the population in parliamentary constituencies in rural areas had been on a gradual decrease while the numbers of people in the city areas were on the rise.
Asked about the objective of amending the delimitation laws, an EC official on Thursday told New Age that the Election Commission was going to amend the delimitation laws to protect parliamentary seats in rural areas from further diminution and restrict the possible decrease of seats in the capital due to increase in population.
Justifying the amendments to the Delimitation of Constituencies Ordinance 1976, he said that the distance between the urban and rural areas would increase and discipline would be adversely affected if the laws are not amended.
‘According to delimitation laws amended 34 years ago, the number of parliamentary constituencies is increasing day by day in the divisional headquarters, particularly in the capital, and the number of seats in rural areas is decreasing,’ he said.
The Election Commission, based on the population census of 2001 whose final report was published in 2007, for the last time delimited the constituencies in 2008 for the ninth parliamentary elections held on 29 December, 2008.
In the last delimitation, the EC had redrawn the constituencies by either increasing or decreasing the number of unions in rural areas or wards in city corporations to ensure that there are about four lakh people on an average in each constituency.
Dhaka district saw the highest increase of constituencies, from 13 to 20, but the EC reduced the number of seats in other districts that had more than three constituencies but many of whose inhabitants had migrated to the cities.
And EC official said that a clause would be added to the rule to ensure that regardless of population of Dhaka district, the number of its constituencies would not be more than 20.
According to the available data, the population of Dhaka city was only 21,72,000 in 1975, but it shot up to more than 13 million with the unabated influx of people seeking employment in the capital.
On the basis of Bangladesh’s current rate of population growth, the United Nations has predicted that Dhaka would be home to 16.8 million people in 2015 and would rank among the top 20 mega-cities in terms of population.
