Gangtok, Feb. 24: New Congress working president Ashok Tshong has accused the ruling Sikkim Democratic Front government of playing with the sentiments of the people of west Sikkim during the process of delimitation of Assembly constituencies in the state.

The delimitation of constituencies in the state took place last year.

Tshong, who addressed his first news conference after taking over as working president of the party last week, said the SDF government had tried to cut down the number of electoral constituencies in west Sikkim to eight from the earlier total of nine seats, hurting public sentiment in the district.

Tshong’s accusation has brought the controversy over delimitation of constituencies to the fore yet again. Earlier, various political and community organisations had opposed the delimitation process on different grounds.

Tshong said the constituency of Hee-Bermiok had been abolished during the delimitation process carried out by the government. The decision was, however, reversed after Parliament intervened and instructed that the delimitation of constituencies be carried out on the basis of the 2001 census.

“If the SDF had the chance, Hee-Bermiok would have been abolished as an electoral constituency and only eight seats would have remained in west Sikkim,” said Tshong.

The working president also expressed fears that if the SDF managed to come back to power, it would restart the delimitation process and deliberately make such “errors”.

He said the reason given by the SDF for abolishing Hee-Bermiok was that it was sparsely populated. Other factors like geographical location, public sentiment and historical perspective were ignored, he said.

Tshong, a businessman-turned-politician, returned to the Congress recently after a long hiatus. In the 1994 election, he had floated a political outfit called United Liberation Front of Sikkim. In the Assembly election that year, he defeated sitting Congress chief minister Sanchaman Limbu from Yuksom in west Sikkim. He is the only person in the state who has defeated a serving chief minister.

After 1996, Tshong distanced himself from active politics and concentrated on his business projects in Nepal. After rejoining the Congress last week, he was elected working president to replace Namkha Gyaltshen, who quit the party to join the SDF.

Tshong said he had joined the Congress because people now wanted a change and only a national party could fulfil their wishes.