Declare Kathua-North as Dinga Amb Kandi constituency

BDC Members, Sarpanchs and Panchs staging protest outside Tehsil office at Dinga Amb in Kathua on Thursday. —Excelsior/Pardeep
BDC Members, Sarpanchs and Panchs staging protest outside Tehsil office at Dinga Amb in Kathua on Thursday. —Excelsior/Pardeep

BDC, Panchayat members protest

Excelsior Correspondent

KATHUA, Mar 17: The Block Development Committee (BDC) members, Sarpanchs and Panchs besides many prominent persons, irrespective of their party affiliations from seven Panchayats held strong protest at Tehsil headquarters Dinga Amb today demanding, change in the nomenclature of Kathua North constituency to Dinga Amb Kandi Assembly constituency.
Led by BDC Chairman, Sudesh Kumar and Sarpanchs Dinga Amb A&B Panchayats, Seema Gupta & Surinder Verma besides Kulbhushan Singh from Mangloor , the PRI members from seven adjoining Panchayats held protest on main-Dyala Chak-Billawar Road at Dinga Amb Bus Stand and raised slogans in support of their demand. They demanded that name of Kathua North Constituency be changed as Dinga Amb Kandi Constituency as majority of the area in this constituency falls from Dinga Amb tehsil. Moreover, this is centrally located station/ tehsil headquarters of the constituency.
After holding protest on main road then they moved to the office of Tehsildar Dinga Amb, Sunil Dogra and handed over memorandum to him for further submitting to the SDM Hiranagar and the J&K Delimitation Commission.
BDC chairman pointed out that Dinga Amb, Mangloor, Katli, Sallan, Chilk, Talli and adjoining areas remained connected with Hiranagar constituency for long 53 years. Then this Kandi belt was again separated and attached with Billawar constituency for 22 years. This area remained totally neglected by the past public representatives. The people were struggling since long for the last many decades for separate Kandi Assembly constituency. Now it it unfortunate that in the draft report, the Delimitation Commission has attached this area with Kathua North. This areas always remained a ball in the hands of politicians and faced exploitation.
The PRIs strongly objected to the move and pleaded that name of Kathua North be changed as Dinga Amb Kandi Constituency and if proposal is not accepted, this areas be attached with Hiranagar Constituency for the convenience of the public being more closer as compared to Kathua. They claimed if their proposal was not accepted, they will launch indefinite agitation. They hoped that the Delimitation Commission would take serious view of their objection and incorporate necessary changes in the draft proposal.
Prominent among others present included, Sarpanch Chilk East Reena Rai, Sarpanch Mangloor Sharda Devi, Panchs Rakesh Purohit, Varinder Sharma, Bandana Sharma, Rakesh Singh, Anil Sharma, Vikram Singh and many others.