Sikkim Assembly Expansion

Context:

The Home Ministry has moved the Union Cabinet to increase the number of seats in the Sikkim Assembly from 32 to 40.
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will soon decide on the proposal.

Background

A petition was moved in the Supreme Court that Limboos and Tamangs were not adequately represented in the Assembly, and the court in 2016 directed the Home Ministry to take action.
The tribal community nursed a sense of deprivation of their political and fundamental rights, ever since they had been declared a Scheduled Tribe in 2003 under Article 342 of the Constitution.
There are 90,000 Limboo-Tamangs.
By the Delimitation Act, 2002, the number of seats in an Assembly can be readjusted only on the basis of the first census after 2026.
The Second Schedule to the Representation of People Act, 1950 and Section 5A of the Representation of People Act, 1951 have been amended to change the Assembly strength.

Bhutias-Lepchas

Sikkim has 12 seats reserved for Bhutias-Lepchas.
It is not because they are a Scheduled Tribe, but as a sequel to a political agreement in 1973 between the Government of India, the former Chogyal (King) of Sikkim and political parties.

Significance

The seats are being increased to accommodate the Limboo and Tamang communities, notified as Scheduled Tribes in January 2003.
Of the eight new seats, five will be reserved for them.
If approved, it will be the first expansion of the Assembly since Sikkim merged with India in 1975.

Limbu

They are Kirati people indigenous and native to their homeland himalayas, hills, mountainous and plains regions.

Tamang people

Bhutias

They are a community of people of Tibetan ancestry, who speak Lhopo or Sikkimese, a Tibetan dialect.
The Bhutias are spread out over Nepal, Bhutan, and in northern West Bengal, especially in the towns of Kalimpong and Darjeeling.
The Bhutias as recognized as Scheduled Tribes in the states of Sikkim, West Bengal and Tripura.

Lepchas