Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 3: Dogra Sadar Sabha (DSS) under its president Thakur Gulchain Singh Charak organized an all party meeting to discuss delimitation process as the Delimitation Commission appointed by the Government of India will be visiting J&K for four days from 6th July to interact with political parties, public representatives and the J&K administration.
The meeting discussed combined, joint proposal to even out the political imbalance that the people of this region have had to put up with, due to the unjustified lesser number of seats allocated to Jammu under the political hegemony prevailing in the erstwhile State over the past 7 decades.
It was recalled that bias against Jammu was built into the very initiation of the delimitation process in Jammu and Kashmir when, after accession in 1947, only 30 seats were arbitrarily allotted to Jammu and 43 seats to Kashmir without any justification. Jammu province presently has 37 seats, the bias continues as Kashmir has 46.
The leaders discussed the various prevailing imbalances, comparing, each constituency in relation to population, area, topography and density of population and have tabulated details for projecting to the Election Commission in a memorandum.
The meeting resolved that the 1-hour time allotted for hearing the anomalies of six districts of Jammu province is grossly insufficient and is nothing beyond an eye wash with indifference. The leaders noted that the 2011 census on which the delimitation is being worked out is fudged and does not reflect correct figures.
It was resolved that the SC/ST, Balmikis, West Pakistan refugees and the migrated population of PoJK must be given their voting rights and the seats kept vacant for PoJK be allotted to PoJK migrants as with rampant demographic changes not many of them are left in PoJK. It was also resolved that the migrated population from Kashmir Valley in 1990 to Jammu and permanently settled in Jammu province must be accounted for in Jammu province.
A short committee was formed to shape up the memorandum on these lines and submit before the Election Commission. Prominent among those who attended the meeting were Sheikh Abdul Rehman (Ex-MP), Prof Bhim Singh (NPP), K B Jandyal (IAS Retd), Brig M S Jamwal, Col Dr Virindra Sahi, Ajay Khajuria, Yash Paul Gupta, Y V Sharma and Gourav Gupta.
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