Experts have warned members of the Constituency Delimitation Commission that there could be attempts at “gerrymandering” while delineating the constituencies, in a way to cluster the electorate to favour a political party.

This is done by using different tactics but most commonly by ‘packing’ or ‘cracking,’ according to experts. 

‘Packing’ refers to putting as many members of one party into one constituency to limit the amount of seats they win while ‘packing’ refers to splitting voters of the opposing party into two different constituencies so as to avoid stiff competition in a given area.

“There were attempts at ‘gerrymandering’ from various political groups when we were carving out the local units through the Local Level Restructuring Commission,” said Balananda Poudyal, chairman of the dissolved Local Level Restructuring Commission, at an interaction in the Capital on Thursday. “The CDC runs a similar risk.”

According to experts, political gerrymandering would make representation less accurate and diminish the representation of a certain group.

The constitution bars court cases on any matter related to the constituency delimitation made by the CDC.

“The decision of the LLRC was challenged in court but the CDC’s report cannot be questioned. So the CDC should be more watchful of influence,” said Poudyal.

The constitution lists population and geography as the bases of carving out the constituencies. But there is no clarity over how much weight one should get.

Professor Bhim Subedi said the CDC should be clear whether to count Nepali citizens working or staying abroad or to exclude them.