Kashmir Magazine By : Kashmir Magazine | Srinagar, Publication Date: Saturday, May 14, 2022 10:43:20 PM | Updated Date : Saturday, May 14, 2022 10:43:20 PM
The Delimitation Commission on Jammu and Kashmir, formed in March 2020, on Thursday (May 5) notified its final report giving six additional assembly seats to Jammu region and one to Kashmir Valley and bringing areas of Rajouri and Poonch under the Anantnag parliamentary seat.
The Commission’s report takes the total number of seats in the UT to 90 from 83. This will increase the number of seats in the Jammu division from 37 to 43 and in the Kashmir valley from 46 to 47.
The panel has recommended reorganization of the Lok Sabha constituencies in such a way that all five parliamentary seats in the UT have an equal distribution of assembly segments.
To achieve this, the panel has redrawn the boundaries of the Anantnag and Jammu Lok Sabha seats. Jammu division’s Poonch and Rajouri districts that were earlier part of the Jammu parliamentary seat have now been included in Anantnag.
The panel stated that by this reorganization, each Parliamentary constituency will have an equal number of 18 Assembly Constituencies.
The panel has also reserved nine assembly seats – six in Jammu and three in Kashmir – for Scheduled Tribes. Seven assembly seats have been reserved for Scheduled Castes.
“It is worthwhile to mention that the Constitution of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State did not provide for reservation of seats for the Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly,” said the panel.
The panel has also recommended the provision of at least two seats for members (with one woman) from among Kashmiri migrants in the assembly.
It has also recommended that the Central government consider giving displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir some representation in the assembly. The changes mean that 43.8 percent of the UT’s population in Jammu will now vote in 47.8 percent of the seats, while the 56.2 percent voters living in Kashmir will vote in the remaining 52.2 percent of the seats.
Until now, Kashmir’s 56 percent had 55.4 percent of the seats and Jammu’s 43.8 percent had 44.5 percent of the seats.
The Delimitation Commission is a high-power body whose orders have the force of law and cannot be called into question before any court, according to the Election Commission of India rules.
These orders come into force on a date to be specified by the President of India and thus become the basis for all future elections until the next delimitation exercise. The orders are laid before Parliament and the legislative assembly, but no modifications are permissible, the rules say.
The first consequence of the completion of the delimitation exercise would be restoration of the political process and eventual assembly polls.
J&K has been under Central rule since June 19, 2018, following the collapse of a coalition government headed by the People’s Democratic Party’s Mehbooba Mufti after the pullout of its partner BJP.
The completion of the process of redrawing the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir paves the way for assembly elections in the Union Territory.
Many leaders, including home minister Amit Shah, have said that elections would be held in the UT after the completion of the delimitation process.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a meeting with Jammu and Kashmir leaders on June 24 last year, had said the ongoing delimitation exercise has to happen quickly so that polls can be held to install an elected government that gives strength to its development trajectory.
In the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats was governed by the Indian Constitution, but the delimitation of its Assembly seats was governed separately by the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution and Jammu and Kashmir Representation of the People Act, 1957.
After the revocation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, the state lost its special status and was divided into two UTs – J&K and Ladakh. The delimitation exercise was necessitated after Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, increasing the number of seats.
Before that, the erstwhile state had 111 assembly seats—46 in Kashmir, 37 in Jammu, four in Ladakh, and 24 seats reserved for PoK. Since Ladakh was carved out as a separate UT, J&K was left with 107 seats, including the 24 for PoK.
With seven additional seats, the Reorganisation Act increased the seats to 114, making the effective strength of the assembly 90, excluding the 24 seats reserved for PoK.
The delimitation commission, headed by Justice (retired) Ranjana Prakash Desai and comprising two other members, Sushil Chandra, Chief Election Commissioner; and KK Sharma, State Election Commissioner, J&K, was set up in February-March 2020 to redraw Assembly and parliamentary constituencies of J&K.
Five members of Parliament from J&K were its associate members. The panel had been expected to submit its report in March 2021, but was given many extensions. The first draft recommendations were released in January and the second draft report in February before the delimitation order was passed on May 5.
A notification of the Delimitation Commission’s order was published in the Gazette of India on Thursday. Besides Justice Desai, it was signed by the two other ex-officio members, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu and Kashmir KK Sharma. The Commission also worked with five Lok Sabha MPs from J&K nominated by the Lok Sabha Speaker as Associate Members. They are: National Conference MPs Farooq Abdullah, Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh, and Jugal Kishore Sharma of the BJP.
Political analysts said if the BJP manages a grand show in the Jammu region like it did in the 2014 Assembly elections, it could well be the single largest party in the Union Territory since the Valley’s electorate will be split between many claimants – National Conference, PDP, Peoples’ Conference, Congress and Left.
In its report, the panel has recommended to the Government of India to make legal provision for nomination of at least two members (one of them must be a female) from the community of Kashmiri migrants in the Legislative Assembly.
As per its recommendation submitted to the central government, the commission has said these members may be given power at par with the power of nominated members of the Legislative Assembly of Union Territory of Puducherry, where the Central government has powers to nominate three MLAs and their powers are similar to elected legislators.
In its report, the panel has also recommended to the Central government that it may consider giving the displaced persons from Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir some representation in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, by way of nomination of representatives of the displaced persons from Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the panel, during the public hearings, it received a number of representations from the Kashmiri migrants and the displaced persons from Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir. “The delegations of Kashmiri migrants represented before the Commission that they were persecuted and forced to live in exile as refugees in their own country for the last three decades. It was urged that in order to preserve their political rights, seats may be reserved for them in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and Parliament,” panel said in a release.
The Commission also said the displaced persons from PoK also requested it to reserve a few seats for them in the J&K Legislative Assembly
The Commission, in a release, said that the delimitation process was a ''challenging task'' because of its ''peculiar geo-cultural landscape'' that presented unique issues arising due to factors like competing political aspirations, vast differences in population density between districts, existence of sub-regions within certain districts, uncertainty of life and inadequate availability of connectivity and public conveniences in villages along the International Border prone to unprovoked intermittent firing/shelling in the border districts.
Ignoring pleas of regional political parties of not joining Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region with the Anantnag parliamentary seat, the Commission said that it had ensured that every Lok Sabha seat will have 18 assembly seats each.
The regional political parties had opposed joining Rajouri and Poonch areas of Jammu with Anantnag in South Kashmir on the plea that these areas were geographically quite far away. Both the areas are 160 km from Anantnag via Mughal Road which remains cut off during winter months due to heavy snow.
Names of some assembly seats have been changed keeping in view the demand of local representatives and public sentiment. Tangmarg has been renamed as Gulmarg assembly seat, Zoonimar as Zaidibal, Sonwar as Lal Chowk, Padder as Padder-Nagseni, Kathua North as Jasrota, Kathua South as Kathua, Khour as Chhamb, Mahore as Gulabhgarh, and Darhal as Budhal.