TRIVANDRUM, 31 January 2005 — Delimitation of Parliamentary and State Legislative Assembly constituencies in Kerala will be completed in April.
In the Muslim dominated Malabar region, one new parliamentary constituency and seven assembly constituencies will come up while the southern parts of Kerala will lose as many seats when the constituencies are redrawn considering the number of voters.
“The Commission will consider all the suggestions made by the members. I will elaborate on this after we finalize the draft working paper,” Election Commissioner B.B. Tandon told reporters after a sitting of the Delimitation Commission here.
The new Assembly constituencies would come into being before the next elections due April next year.
The next sitting of the Commission would be held in Delhi on Feb. 28.
He said the draft would be sent to the committee members for verification and the same should be returned to the Election Commission with their remarks. The draft, along with the dissent of the members, would be published in the gazette and local newspapers.
“The proposals would be finalized only after a public hearing,” he said.
IUML Gears Up for Polls
Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest ruling partner, has decided to revitalize its members before the elections to the local self-governments due this year.
A Working Committee meeting held in Calicut, the first one after scandal-tainted Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikkutty was forced to resign, also discussed proposed statewide march by its youth wing demanding special recruitment in government jobs.
“There will be no truck with the Marxists in any form,” Kunhalikkutty, who is the general secretary of the party in Kerala, told journalists after the meeting. Reports said other ministers rejected his demand for close monitoring of their performance by the party leadership.
Party President G. M. Banatwalla, reportedly not in good terms with Kerala leaders after he was denied nomination in the last elections, also attended the meeting chaired by state unit President Panakkad Syed Mohammed Ali Shihab Thangal.
Ma’adani Plight
Two leading lawyers, who visited People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Abdunnaser Ma’adani in a high-security prison in Coimbatore, said the physically challenged Muslim cleric has lost faith in the system.
The 40-year-old accused of masterminding serial blasts to kill Bharatiya Janata Party President Lal Krishna Advani had already spent six years in jail without bail or parole. “His health is deteriorating day by day. He has lost all hopes. He says judges are prejudiced against him and none of them has shown the patience to hear his pleas for justice,” former Law Secretary C. Khalid and co-counsel V. Ram Kumar said.
They have volunteered to move next week the bail plea application in the Madras High Court, which has already rejected one.
Ma’dani is the 15th accused in the case charged by the Tamil Nadu police against him and 162 others for killing 58 people in the Coimbatore blasts in February 1998.
Kerala police arrested him on March 31, 1998, for alleged provocative speeches and handed over to the Tamil Nadu police that booked him under National Security Act.
Last week, Supreme Court declined an earlier bail application directing him to approach appropriate forum.
The lawyers said he had lost weight almost by half and had started greying. His sugar level had shot up to 300 mg/dl. He is also suffering from spondylosis and experiences extreme pain in the leg amputated after a bomb attack by alleged Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Kerala High Court had granted him bail in all cases registered in Kerala recently terming the detention as inhuman and a negation of fundamental rights.
Of the 162 defendants, 17 have declined legal counsel. The court had so far examined 1,400-odd witnesses and all but one had refused to implicate him. The sole witness who implicated him later deposed in the court that the prosecution had bribed him and presented as evidence Rs. 1,000 they had given him, the lawyers said.
Order Reserved
A Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) court in Cochin will deliver its judgment today on the killing of an entire family of six, including two children, four years back. Augustine, 48, owner of an hardware shop, his wife Baby, 43, their children Divya, 16 and Jesmon, 12, his mother Clara and his sister Kochurani, 40, were found dead murdered in their house near the St. Mary’s High School, Aluva on Jan. 6, 2001 midnight.
Police later arrested Antony, a relative of Augustine, who was planning to escape to the Gulf. The local police and the crime branch investigated the case before the CBI took over after High Court intervened.
CBI’s Special Court judge Kamal Pasha completed hearing yesterday.
The CBI meanwhile filed first information report (FIR) in the sex scandal involving the death of a teenage girl and the suicide of another girl and whole of her family at Kiliroor and Kaviyoor.
