Srinagar, Dec 20: After the Delimitation Commission on Monday proposed six additional seats for Jammu region and one for Kashmir division in its draft presentation before the Panel’s Associate Members in New Delhi, Kashmir’s political parties have been quick to voice their disapproval and anguish.
Besides disproportionate number of seats for the Jammu region, the panel has proposed nine seats for Scheduled Tribes and seven for Scheduled Castes as well.
Taking to social media, National Conference vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, while voicing his disapproval wrote, “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 it’s only consideration. Contrary to the promised “scientific approach” it’s a political approach.”
On the other hand, People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti expressed similar views, ” My apprehensions about the Delimitation Commission werent misplaced. They want to pitch people against each other by ignoring the population census & proposing 6 seats for one region & only one for Kashmir.
This commision has been created simply to serve BJPs political interests by dividing people along religious & regional lines. The real game plan is to install a government in J&K which will legitimise the illegal & unconstitutional decisions of August 2019.”
Sources privy to the panel meeting in New Delhi told the news agency Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that all the Associate Members were present for the first time in the meeting as National Conference (NC) Members of Parliament attended the meeting first time since the formation of the commission.
The total number of assembly seats after this addition, if made into a law, would be 43 in Jammu and 47 in Kashmir.
The commission has asked its Associate Members to submit their suggestions by Dec 31, 2021.
Meanwhile, NC MP, Hasnain Masoodi while talking to KNO from New Delhi, said that the proposal in unacceptable, saying that it is a matter of concern.
“We will submit our report in detail very soon as the proposal is not acceptable at all,” he said.
—(With inputs from KNO)
