Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Dec 7: Reminding the ruling BJP in Delhi of its ‘vision document’ released during 2014 elections as also the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders, the J&K NPP activists led by party chairman Harshdev Singh held a protest demonstration at Jantar Mantar here, seeking early delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in the J&K State.
The agitated protesters were raising slogans against BJP, Prime Minister and the J&K Government. While addressing gathering, Harshdev Singh (former Minister) 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 with early constitution of delimitation commission. He said that delimitation process involving delimitation of constituencies, re-adjustment of territorial boundaries, rotation of reserved seats, reservation of seats for women etc. should be completed in a time bound manner.
Emphasizing the urgency to initiate this process, Harshdev said that geographical area, number of voters, 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 statistics, Mr 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 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 18,000 voters against around two 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.
Likewise, district Udhampur, Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri and Poonch also were required to be given additional Assembly seats in view of their entitlement on the basis of prescribed norms governing delimitation.
Yash Paul Singh, Gagan Pratap Singh, Purshotam Parihar and Paramjeet Singh Marshal also spoke on the occasion.
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