Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 2: Referring to repeated statements made by BJP leaders after re-organization of the State on August 5 assuring early delimitation of Assembly constituency in J&K, JKNPP Chairman and former Minister Harshdev Singh regretted that all such utterances have also proved to be mere “Jumlas”.
“The process of delimitation in the UT can commence only after amendment of J&K Re-organization Act which has barred such process till the first census after the year 2026”, he said while addressing a press conference, here today.
He pointed out that sec 63 of the JK Re-organization Act unambiguously stated that delimitation could not take place until the census figures for the year 2026 were published. Quoting the said provision in the Re-organization Act, Singh said sec 63 stated that “Notwithstanding anything contained in sec 59 to 61, until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published, it shall not be necessary to readjust the division of successor union territory of Jammu and Kashmir into Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies…..”.
Reiterating that delimitation is possible only by amending sec 63 of the J&K Re-organization Act, Harshdev Singh said that the said provision had not been amended even in the last session of the Parliament.
Emphasising the urgency to initiate the Delimitation process on war footing, Harshdev Singh said that geographical area, topography, number of voters, nature of terrain, inaccessibility and poor communication facilities are the factors which weigh heavily in favour of Jammu region and entitle it to a higher number of Assembly constituencies.
Quoting the officials statistics, Singh said that it Kashmir Valley with a total area of 15953 sq kms had 46 Assembly seats as compared to 37 seats for Jammu region whose geographical areas was 26293 sq kms. He further said that Kashmir region despite well developed communication links and a high road density has one Assembly segment for every 346 sq kms area, but contrarily Jammu region with its highly tough terrain and acute accessibility problems and an extremely low road density has one assembly segment for every 710 sq kms. He said that in terms of voters also there are wide disparities with constituencies in Kashmir like Gurez Assembly which has merely 16,000 voters against around two lakh voters of Jammu West and Gandhi Nagar constituencies.
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