Saturday, April 07, 2007

ECDC set to hand in report suggesting around 500 CA seats

The Election Constituency Delimitation Commission (ECDC) is set to hand in its report that includes suggestion to settle on an approximate 500 parliamentary seats to the government.
According to sources, the commission is gearing up to finalise the report and is likely to hand it to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala tomorrow.
The commission's 15-day deadline to submit its report ends tomorrow.
The ECDC's member secretary Shambhu Man Amatya said that since the commission had completed all its tasks on time, it would not be asking for an extension of the deadline.
The commission has determined the new set of election constituencies based on the census conducted in the year 2001.
According to the 2001 census, 51 percent of the total population resides in the hilly and mountainous regions while the percentage is 49 in the Terai region.
The commission has suggested the government determine election constituencies to reflect the same proportions, sources said.
According to sources, the commission has concluded that the constituent assembly must have a minimum of 471 and a maximum of 517 members.
The interim constitution states one member will be elected each from the 205 election constituencies, 204 seats to be elected through proportional representation system and 16 members elected by the council of ministers, making a total of 425 members in the CA.
The government had setup the 6-member commission headed by former Supreme Court justice Arjun Prasad Singh on March 25.
The political parties had suggested the ECDC to determine the election constituencies without reducing the number of existing constituencies

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