Delimitation Commission

·         On May 23, 2008 Justice (Retd) Kuldip Singh, Chairperson, Fourth Delimitation Commission recommended that the next general census, 2011, be conducted panchayat-wise in all states. Bihar, Orissa, WB and Kerala have already been following this system.

·         The Fourth Delimitation Commission was formed in July 2002. Its brief was to redraw the boundaries of the existing Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies on the basis of the 1991 census.

Mission IAS’2009

·         Later, the 2001 census was made the basis after an amendment to the Delimitation Act.

·         Since the number of constituencies has been set for both the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, the changes were made in the number of constituencies reserved for SC and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

·         Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswamy  said "The purpose of delimitation is also to more or less equalize the votes and so constituencies which had a very big population were downsized and the votes shifted to the adjacent constituencies"

• Karnataka, where polling for the third and final phase got over May 22, became the first state to go to polls under the newly drawn constituencies as per the recommendations of the commission.