Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, have recently observed that draft report of delimitation commission formed to redraw territorial jurisdiction of Parliamentary and Legislative constituencies across newly formed Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in terms of JK Reorganization Act of 2019 that had divided erstwhile state of J&K into two Union Territories of Ladakh and JK has been forwarded to the Associated Members of the Commission. It is seen that the Delimitation Commission formed on 03 Mar 2020 with original term of 1 year and extended till Mar 2022 prepared its draft report and handed over to Associate members in Parliament on 05 Feb 2022 for their comments to be given by 14 Feb 2022 so that the final report could be placed in public domain before getting approved and implemented. Contents of the draft have been circulating in the media and it therefore attracted public response at this stage. The draft report has been appreciated and also criticized by the affected citizens on ground. As this is a draft report and has to travel through few more steps before getting finalized, accepted by the competent authority and implemented for holding future elections either for state legislature or the Union Parliament. However, the draft proposal available in public domain through media is being analyzed, commented, appreciated and criticized by the stake holders. It is also a fact that the delimitation commission is bound to work within given terms of reference and the constitutional limitations.
* It may be in order to look at major recommendations of the J&K Delimitation Commission. Firstly, as per the mandate granted under the J&K Reorganization Act 2019 the number of seats has been increased from 87 to 90. This interim Report proposes an increase of six seats for the Jammu province and one seat in the Kashmir province, taking number of constituencies to 43 and 47 respectively. The commission also suggested redrawing of boundaries of most of the Assemblies in J&K. It has therefore proposed to name and reconfigure 28 new constituencies and deleted 19 assembly segments. It has also been proposed to reserve seven seats for Scheduled Caste (SC) mainly in Jammu Province and nine Scheduled Tribe seats to help Gujar and Bakarwal tribes inhabiting in both the provinces. The commission has also proposed reframing Lok Sabha Constituencies, out of total five seats; three were in Kashmir Province and two in Jammu province. It has thus proposed a Lok Sabha Seat disjointed geographically by merging three districts of South Kashmir and two districts of Rajouri and Poonch in the Pir Panchal valley and the same is named as Anantnag-Rajouri Seat.
* As it appears that most of the Legislative and Parliamentary constituencies are proposed to be redrawn by including or excluding territorial jurisdiction of existing constituencies that apparently affects people on ground. On closer interaction with people especially hailing from those 19 deleted assembly segments, it is gathered that in most of the case these segments have been merged with newly proposed constituencies without appreciating the ground reality both in terms of demography and existing public service centers like block, panchayats and tehsil offices. In few cases two existing assembly segments have been merged into one constituency without modifying the existing reservation status. The sentiment of the population from such segments have started fermenting crowd and protest against delimitation commission’s draft report not only by ordinary citizens but also by elected members of Block Development Councils, District Development councils, Sarpanchs and Panchs of the Panchyats from districts of Poonch, Rajouri, Jammu, Doda, Bhadarwah and Kishtwar. Public rejection of delimitation panel’s draft is also spreading in those assemblies that are proposed to be renamed and reconfigured shaking social structure of the populace. The comfort level of voters and local political leaders is equally affected as the existing government infrastructure especially in rural area may not be adequate to cope up with proposed change and the people of Union Territory are apprehensive and they anticipate intended delay in holding future Legislative elections. These voices of concern have started rising possibly due to deficiency in the draft report that could fail to appreciate ground reality especially in terms of geographical compactness and size of population.
* Another point of public annoyance is the constitutional aspect i.e. Under Article 170; states also get divided into territorial constituencies as per Delimitation Act after every census. There is no census carried out after 2011 and it therefore infers that there was no constitutional necessity to form Delimitation Commission at this time. It also conveys a designed political move to delay State legislative elections so that fertile ground could be created to gain mandate in favor of ruling dispensation. It therefore needs to be more transparent and fair in conveying the moot point that guided Union Government to hold Delimitation Commission on priority and continued to remotely govern youngest union territory through alternate and temporary constitutional arrangement of LG and his team for infinite period beyond permissible limit of six months on one or the other pretext.
* At this juncture, when there are mass agitations across the provinces involving almost all political entities including BJP whose ground level leadership of recently elected Panchyati Raj Institutes such BDC, DDC etc are threatening mass resignation to senior state BJP leadership especially from Suchetgarh Assembly segment, proposed to be deleted from the map, civil societies including reputed educationists, it is incumbent on the part of five Associate members who are sitting Members of Parliament from the UT and Lieutenant Governor and his administration to brief on ground situation to the Delimitation Commission so that necessary amendments are incorporated appropriately to correct geographical compactness, population ration, topography and other deficiencies causing public concern before finalizing its report. The issue needs to be handled seriously so that public unrest is arrested from further fermentation causing avoidable delay in implementing Delimitation Commission Report and holding state Legislative Elections at the earliest possible time. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
(The author is Wg Cdr (Retd)
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