Chandigarh, October 14
The Delimitation Commission of India says no to Satyamev Puram, which would have been the 20th district of Haryana, according to informed sources.
The new district would have started functioning from November 1, which is celebrated as Haryana Day. It was on this day in 1966 that Haryana was carved out as a separate state from Punjab.
Satyamev Puram would have comprised the Meo Muslim-dominated areas of Gurgaon and Faridabad districts.
When contacted the Chairman of the commission, Justice Kuldeep Singh, former Supreme Court Judge, confirmed that the commission had written to the Haryana Government not to carve out a new district untill the work of delimitation of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the state was completed.
The commission had written to all the states about two years ago that it would commence the delimitation work on the basis of existing administrative units. Therefore, if any state wanted to change any administrative units, it should do before the commencement of the delimitation work.
When Parliament asked the commission to delimit the constituencies on the basis of the 2001 census instead of the 1991 census, the commission reiterated its directions to the states in this regard early this year.
Several states like Bihar, Uttranchal and Jharkhand later approached the commission with a request to allow them to change administrative units. Justice Kuldeep Singh told TNS that the commission rejected the requests of all states.
When the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala,
announced the formation of Satyamev Puram on October 2, the commission took notice of newspaper reports and suo motu wrote to the Chief Secretary of Haryana drawing his attention to its directions.
The sources say the Chief Secretary sought the permission of the commission to carve out Satyamev Puram. However, the commission firmly put its foot down and wrote to the state government that since the work of delimitation of constituencies in Haryana was in an advanced stage, no new administrative unit could be created.
