New Delhi: Despite concerns that its redrawing of Assam’s constituencies will politically marginalise the state’s Muslim community, the Election Commission of India (ECI) finalised its delimitation plans on Friday (August 11).Its final delimitation order follows a draft proposal released in June this year, which recommended the redrawing of many constituency boundaries but kept their total number (14 at the parliamentary level and 126 at the assembly level) unchanged.As many as 30 assembly constituencies will cease to exist in their current form while 26 new ones will be created, the Economic Times reported in June.The final order did not further change any constituency boundaries, but renamed 19 assembly constituencies and one parliamentary constituency.Assam chief minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier said that if the ECI’s draft proposal was approved, the “people of Assam” would have a greater say in their constituencies.“If this draft is approved and comes into reality, then the people of Assam will hold prominence in 102 constituencies,” he said during a speech in the state’s Lakhimpur district.“Assam should not be taken over by unfamiliar persons, and for that we worked religiously to protect jati [community], mati [land], and bheti [foundation], so as to retain the political power in the hands of our people.”Also Read: BJP’s Gerrymandering of Assam Districts Puts Identity Politics at the Centre of Its 2024 StrategyHis remarks and the delimitation proposal have been criticised as an attempt to weaken the representation of the state’s Bengali-origin Muslim community, who are often vilified as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) party, whose primary voter base is among Assam’s Bengali-origin Muslims, has said that the delimitation exercise will reduce the number of Muslim-majority assembly constituencies in the state from 29 to 22.Five constituencies which always elect legislators from the minority community have also been reserved for either Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) contestants, the Times of India reported.Additionally, the delimitation uses data from the 2001 census as opposed to the 2011 one, The Hindu reported. This means that increases in the state’s Muslim population will not factor into revising the nature of existing SC and ST constituencies, thus protecting them from being de-reserved.The delimitation exercise will increase the number of ST assembly constituencies in Assam from 16 to 19 and SC assembly constituencies from eight to nine. Two parliamentary constituencies have also been reserved for STs.AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal said that his party will suffer heavy losses if the proposed draft was implemented.“This planning has been done with BJP as the mastermind with the target of reducing [the impact of] Muslim votes to the extent possible. The way Himanta has done this along with Amit Shah is such that Assam can have only two parties, the BJP and the Congress, and that no other party can be in the middle,” he alleged.