Sajjad Hameed
Srinagar Dec 21: The delimitation commission has proposed six new seats for Jammu and just one seat for Kashmir, triggering widespread criticism from major political parties in the region.
Sources told the Kashmir Review that the lone Assembly constituency in Kashmir has been created in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
“The delimitation commission has proposed one additional seat for Budgam district in Kashmir,” said a source privy to the Delimitation Commission proposal.
The six seats likely to be added in Jammu are one each in Samba, Kathua, Udhampur, Doda, Kishtwar and Rajouri districts in the Jammu region.
“The National Conference is going to prepare notes for the delimitation commission and that will be presented to them before December 31. Our objections will be in those papers,” member parliament and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah told the Kashmir Review.
Abdullah is an associate member of the Delimitation Commission, though associate members have no power to change the proposal. They can only assist the Commission but none of the associate members shall have a right to vote or to sign any decision of the Commission.
However, Commission shall publish the dissenting notes, if any, of any associate member who wants its publication thereof.
Political parties in Kashmir have accused the Delimitation Commission of ignoring the population as the main criteria to delimit Assembly constituencies.
As per the 2011 census, J&K had population of 1,22,67,013 with Kashmir’s population as 68,88,475 (56.15%) and Jammu’s population as 53,78,538 (43.85%).
The total number of Assembly seats in Kashmir was 46 with an average of 1,49,749 per seat while as in Jammu it was 37 with the average population for each seat as only 1,45,365.
So Jammu had nearly 4000 people lesser in each Assembly constituency than Kashmir. Hence, most of the new seats created should have been allotted to Kashmir instead of Jammu, political parties in Kashmir said.
The proposal will take the number of Assembly seats in Jammu to 43 from the existing 37 and to 47 in Kashmir from 46.
Experts say the criticism of the delimitation commission’s proposal is genuine because 56% of the population lives in Kashmir which has been proposed to get only 52% seats in the legislative assembly.
Population share
Kashmir: 56.2% Jammu: 43.8%
Existing seat share
Kashmir: 55 4% Jammu: 44.6%
Proposed seat share
Kashmir: 52.2%. Jammu: 47.8%
Most of the new assembly constituencies created in the Jammu division are to favour the BJP as three seats in Kathua, Samba and Udhampur will be Hindu-majority and each new seat in Kishtwar, Doda and Rajouri districts too have been created in a manner to divide the Muslim voters, locals in Chenab and Pirpanchal said.
Even as Jammu had got more seats than it deserved in the 1996 delimitation exercise, the BJP has often raised the bogey of underrepresentation of the Jammu region and has been pushing for installing a Hindu Chief Minister in the Muslim-majority J&K.
Politicians in Kashmir see the move to “disempower Muslim population by dividing their votes and giving the BJP edge in electoral politics”.
Disappointed by the proposal, the People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone termed it a shame. “Let the electoral process go to hell. It is a shame. No self-respecting politician will be a participant in this sham. It is humiliating. I don’t think I would be part of politics now, I’d want to enjoy my life and leave. It is a shame. It is a slur,” Lone said in a TV interview.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, “The draft recommendation of the J&K delimitation commission is unacceptable. The distribution of newly created assembly constituencies with 6 going to Jammu & only 1 to Kashmir is not justified by the data of the 2011 census.”
“It is deeply disappointing that the commission appears to have allowed the political agenda of the BJP to dictate its recommendations rather than the data which should have been its only consideration. Contrary to the promised “scientific approach” it’s a political approach,” he tweeted.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, “My apprehensions about the Delimitation Commission weren’t misplaced. They want to pitch people against each other by ignoring the population census & proposing 6 seats for one region & only one for Kashmir.”
J&K’s former law secretary Muhammad Ashraf Mir said the commission has proposed to carve out one seat per 1,25,082 people in the Jammu region and one seat per 1,46,563 people in the Kashmir region. “One constituency has been carved out for 1,25,082 people in Jammu Division. For Kashmir Division, the same constituency has been established for 1,46,563 people. In effect 10,09,621 people of the valley have been disenfranchised,” Mir tweeted.
In 2002, following the 84th amendment to the Constitution, the delimitation is to be done in 2026 if not postponed. So, the constitution had imposed a freeze on the delimitation exercise until 2026. But, the BJP-led Union Government repealed the law governing delimitation in the erstwhile state of J&K. It added provision for undertaking the delimitation in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 which increases the Assembly seat strength to 90 seats excluding the 24 seats reserved for areas under Pakistan’s control.
The delimitation commission headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice (retired) Ranjana Desai said it has shared the proposed seat allocation at the level of districts with all the members with the request to furnish their views/comments/suggestions by December 31.
The panel said it has categorised all 20 districts in three broad categories giving a margin of +/- 10% of the average population per assembly constituency while proposing an allocation of the constituencies to the districts.“The Commission has also, for some districts, proposed carving out of an additional constituency to balance the representation for geographical areas having inadequate communication and lack of public conveniences due to their inhospitable conditions on the international border,” it said.
The commission said for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir, nine seats are proposed to be allocated for Scheduled Tribes out of 90 seats on the basis of population. “Seven seats are proposed for Scheduled Castes,” it said.
