Vol. 15 · pages 826–830

807PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Mankapur and Ward No. 36 of the Nagpur City, and Nagpur R.I.C. (excluding patwari circles Nos. 1 and 10 to 12) of the Nagpur tehsil.”;’. —[Dr. Ambedkar ] Mr. Deputy Speaker: Are the other amendments withdrawn by leave of the House ? The amendments were, by leave, withdrawn. Mr. Deputy Speaker: The President’s Amendment Order relating to Madhya Pradesh stands modified to the extent of the amendments accepted by the House. MADRAS (AMENDMENT) ORDER. Amendment made : That the following modification be made in the’ Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies (Madras) (Amendment) Order, 1951 laid on the Table on the 20th September 1951, namely:— “That at page 17, in Item (69)—“Villages comprising the firka of Vaniyambadi in Tirupattur taluka”—for the words “and Chinnakallupalli” occurring at the end, the words “Chinnakallupalli and Devasthanam” be substituted.” —[Dr. Ambedkar ] Further amendment made: That the following modifications be made in the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies (Madras) (Amendment) Order, 1.951 laid on the Table on the 20th September, 1951 namely :— 1. That at page 1, in para. 2(b), in the proposed Explanation, for the words “area comprising the villages” the word “areas” be substituted. 2. That at page 2, for para. 5 of the said Order the following be substituted, namely :- “5. In item (23) of the Appendix to the said Order, for the words “Sevalur part, Pothuravuthampatti, Manapparai” the words “Manapparai panchayat” shall be substituted.” 3. That in para. 6,— (i) in item (2) of the Schedule, for the words “Pitali, Sirimamidi and Gollagandi” the words “Pitali and Shrimamidi” be substituted ; (ii) in item (14) of the Schedule, after the words “Venkampeta near Ramavaram “the word “Ramavaram”, be inserted; (iii) in item (21) of the Schedule, after the word “Derasan,” the word “Pydibhimavaram” be inserted ;

808 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES (iv) in item (63) of the Schedule, after the words “Koppedu Kapula Kandriga”, the word “Agaram”, be inserted. (v) in item (80) of the Schedule, for the words “Kallupatu,” where it occurs for the scond time, the word “Sethupatti” be substituted; (vi) in item (87) of the Schedule, for the word “Aruppukkottai” the words “Aruppukkottai Municipality “be substituted ; (vii) in item (93) of the Schedule, for the words and brackets “Devakottai Rural (Eravaseri)” the words and brackets “Devakottai Municipality, Eravaseri (Rural)” be substituted ; and (viii) in item (95) of the Schedule, for the words and brackets “Kepparpatnam (Manamathurai Panchayat Board)” the words “Kepparpatnam, Manamadurai Panchayat” be substituted. —[Dr. Ambedkar ] Mr. Deputy Speaker: The President’s Amendment Order relating to Madras stands modified to the extent of the amendments accepted by the House. UTTAR PRADESH (AMENDMENT) ORDER Pandit Kunzru (Uttar Pradesh): It is not enough that an order making changes by the President is laid before the House nor is it enough that my hon. friend Dr. Ambedkar should propose further changes in them. We should like to know why these changes have become necessary…….. The constituencies as demarcated I think gave general satisfaction and we ought to be careful therefore in making changes in them. If my hon. friend the Law Minister tells me the precise reasons why the changes in the case of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies of U.P. have become necessary. It will be possible for us to decide whether we should vote with him or against him, but at present we are just helpless. We do not know what to do. Dr. Ambedkar: I have no reason to complain against my hon. friend Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru for raising the point which he has raised, for undoubtedly every one of us should be very careful against permitting any kind of political gerry mandering in the making up of constituencies, and if there was any suspicion that any particular party was manoeuvring to change a constituency which has already been prescribed by the President and approved by the House it is a legitimate

809PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES matter to be raised on the floor of the House. But I would like to tell my hon. friend that so far as my information and knowledge go there is in this amendment not the slightest evidence of any kind of gerrymandering. The amendments which I have sought to make consist only of two things. One is to rectify errors which have crept in by some kind of inadvertence. Some thana which ought to have been mentioned has not been mentioned in the appropriate place and some other thana or some other place has been mentioned in its place. The second thing is that it has been discovered that in some of these cases where contiguity was possible, somehow by some mistake the principle of contiguity has been lost by the inadvertent mixture of some thanas from one constituency to another and an attempt is made in this amendment to remove these two errors, i.e. mistakes of a topographical kind and secondly mistakes which brought about a certain amount of discontiguity. Pandit Kunzru: May I ask my hon. friend whether he is saying this with reference to his own amendment or with regard to the amendments in the President’s Order ? If he is saying this with reference to the president’s Order, then I should like him to turn to the changes proposed in the Garhwal constituency and tell me where the question of restoring contiguity exists. There is contiguity between the various parts of the constituency suggested. I know it is very difficult for him to deal with this local matter, but I mention it only in order to point out to him that the changes suggested are not due entirely to the reasons mentioned by him. Dr. Ambedkar: May I continue, Sir ? You will remember that last time when the President’s Order with regard to delimitation was passed by this house, out of caution I moved a motion that the Speaker of the house should be given power to make such changes as it may be found necessary in order to remove certain errors. Shri Kamath: Verbal errors, verbal amendments.

810 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES 10-00 A. M. Dr. Ambedkar: Verbal, minor, consequential or incidental—I think those were the words which were used. I was very careful to make the proposition as broad as I possibly could make for the simple reason that the House will remember that we carried the motion approving the orders of the President in great hurry and after great bustle and meetings, further meetings and further meetings. Notwithstanding that it has been discovered that even we were not in a position to advise the Speaker with regard to the errors that had crept in. Some errors, therefore, had remained and we thought this was the proper occasion to make some provision in order to eliminate the errors that still remained, notwithstanding the scrutiny of the Local Governments, the scrutiny of the Law Ministry and the scrutiny of the Speaker. I do not think my hon. friend Pandit Kunzru will go to the length of saying that simply because we have at one time passed the Orders as issued by the President, we should not take any further occasion to remove any errors that may still be remaining in the Orders. With regard to the particular constituency to which he referred, he was good enough to suggest that I myself by my own knowledge or information was not in a position to give a correct answer whether a particular constituency was contiguous with the amendment that we are making in this Delimitation Order. We have to depend upon the Local Government on this matter. As he will remember I took particular care to call a meeting of the members of the Uttar Pradesh Delimitation Committee to aid and advise me on the grounds which were alleged for making these changes in the Uttar Pradesh Delimitation Orders, namely correcting errors and making contiguity more possible than it was, but unfortunately he could not come to that meeting. He was the President of the Uttar Pradesh Delimitation Committee and if notwithstanding the advice that has been given to us he still contends that some things have been done which do not produce contiguity, all that I can say is that the fault must lay on his shoulders, for he did not come to the meeting to advise me as to whether what I was doing was correct or not.

811PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Pandit Kunzru: I received no such notice, Sir. Dr. Ambedkar: I think I did send a message to my hon. friend. My hon. friend sent it to me back with a note that with regard to certain amendments that I was accepting from Mr. Gopinath, he was perfectly prepared to support that amendment. Pandit Kunzru: I was consulted only with regard to….... Dr. Ambedkar: He was more interested in the Press Bill……. Pandit Kunzru: ......suggestions made by the Committee appointed by the Speaker under the Representation of People Act, 1950 so far as the Legislative Council constituencies went and I gave my reply with regard to them. As regard the other changes if the U.P. Government has informed the Central Government of the reason for proposing them why should my hon. friend Dr. Ambedkar not place those reasons before the House ? Shri T. N. Singh (Uttar Pradesh) : If I may be permitted as a Member of the Delimitation Committee, to speak. I should like to say that the changes proposed in this notification and as moved by the hon. the Law Minister are not exactly consequential or incidental. I have tried to go carefully into the various changes that are being proposed. Take, for instance, the Benaras District with which I am fully acquainted. I do not know for what reason another pargana, has been added, which means an increase in the number of voters. In regard to Garhwal, I do not know why Chamoli is being shunted about like this. The Minister of State for Finance (Shri Tyagi): Which one is it ? Shri T. N. Singh: It is not Dehra Dun: it is Garhwal. Shri Tyagi: I am equally interested.