Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 27: Seeking the amendment of Section 47 of the State Constitution as well as the J&K Representation of Peoples’ Act during the current session of the Legislative Assembly, Chairman of the NPP and former minister Harshdev Singh has sought early delimitation of Assembly constituencies in the State in conformity with the promises made by the BJP during elections.
Talking to media-persons here today Panthers Party leader said that delimitation is not possible by mere slogans or executive orders without amending the relevant provisions of law. He said that assurances for delimitation and for ending regional bias were not only doled out by the Central BJP leadership but the BJP’s vision document released during elections also categorically promised early delimitation of Assembly constituencies in J&K so as to ensure justice to Jammu region with 33 % seats reserved for women, five seats for displaced persons of PoJK out of 24 seats reserved for them in the State Constitution and three seats for Kashmir migrants.
Lambasting the lackadaisical approach of the Govt towards the main demand of Jammu region, Harshdev said that delimitation of constituencies which forms a part of the coalition’s agenda of alliance deserved a priority consideration.
He said that delimitation process involving delimitation of constituencies, re-adjustment of territorial boundaries, rotation of reserved seats, identification of seats for fresh reservation, reservation of seats as proposed for women etc. should be completed in a time bound manner.
Quoting the officials statistics, Singh said that it was ironical that 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 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. In terms of voters also there are wide disparities with constituencies in Kashmir like Gurez Assembly which has merely 17,000 voters against around 1.70 lakh voters of Jammu west and Gandhi Nagar constituencies. He said that Kishtwar region provided the most glaring example of discrimination as it had only two assembly seats with an area of 7824 sq Kms which was half of the area of entire Kashmir region.
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