Congress leader bats for increasing Meghalaya Assembly seats

A Congress legislator in Meghalaya on Monday felt that there is a need to increase the number of assembly seats to 70 and the Lok Sabha seats to four considering the population growth in the state.

Meghalaya has a unicameral legislature based on adult franchise consisting of 60 members, and two Lok Sabha members and one Rajya Sabha member.

"Considering the increase in population, there are constituencies in the state that require more development projects," Opposition Chief Whip Process Sawkmie told members of the assembly.

The Congress legislator was initiating a discussion on a special motion on the overall development in Meghalaya and the need to seek more financial assistance from the centre and earmark a budget provision for all the eleven districts.

Citing his Mawlai assembly constituency, the biggest assembly constituency in the state with a total of about 43,000 voters and about one lakh population, Sawkmie said: "Some of the assembly constituencies have bigger population and the MLA scheme of Rs two crore may not be sufficient to take care of all the necessitie4s of the constituency."

He also pointed out that the population of Meghalaya is 29.64 lakh while Nagaland with just a population of 19 lakh also has 60 seats.

Sawmkie said that the Rs two crore allotted to each MLA to develop their respective constituency is not enough for a big constituency like his.

He said the state will have a stronger voice if it has more Members of Parliament.

--IANS

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