Sir,
The second draft report of the Delimitation Commission regarding the adding, redrawing, rationalising and redistributing of the assembly constituencies in J and K has turned out to be an enigma, a riddle and an exercise which defies all reason and logic. No interpretation, not even round about or circuitous can lend it any justification or logical ground.
Anyway it was widely believed that the centre wanted to “rationalise the distribution of seats and remove the real or perceived discrimination against Jammu Division.” For this purpose the commission increased seven seats and allotted six of them to Jammu and only one to Kashmir. No reason has been projected for giving more seats to Jammu as this division has less population than the Kashmir Division and the creation of constituencies is done keeping only the population in view. May be Jammu is favoured because it has more area than Kashmir (legally area is not the criterion) ; but the redrawing, realigning, recreating and removing of the constituencies has not fulfilled the basic requirement of degrading the Kashmir Division and enabling the BJP bastion, Jammu Division to get majority of the seats in the proposed elections and put an end to what has been called “Kashmiri domination”. This is because despite increasing six seats in Jammu and only one seat in Kashmir, the Valley still retains 47 seats compared to 43 seats of Jammu. Kashmir thus has a fair chance of tilting the balance in its favour and retain the influence in the UT Government.
The Commission which has no full-fledged member from the UT has mangled the constituencies, ignored geographical contiguity, topography and communication scenario, while redrawing the constituencies. The earlier arrangement was certainly less than adequate but the new proposed arrangement is a total mess. The biggest joke is the unbecoming bid to divide the five parliamentary seats equally between Jammu Division and Kashmir Division.
Till now there are three seats in Kashmir Division and two seats in Jammu Division. Instead of creating one more seat in Jammu Division the commission has divided the existing five seats, giving two and a half seat to Jammu and two and a half to Kashmir. This arrangement has been made by a strange formula of adding one and a half district of Jammu’s Poonch and Rajouri sub regions with the Anantnag Lok Sabha Constituency, which falls in Kashmir and between the two areas stands the 15000 feet high mountain of Pir Panchal. The area remains cut off from Kashmir Valley for about five winter months. The languages spoken in the cross Pir Panchal areas are totally different and the socio-economic profile too doesn’t match with that of Kashmir.
Similarly the old Habba Kadal constituency which has sizable population of Kashmiri Pandits and could be represented by a member of the community has been altogether effaced from the map by dividing it into three parts. These parts have been aligned with various surrounding constituencies for no evident reason.
Dr Farooq Abdullah comment on the Draft Delimitation Report is the most befitting: it defies any and all logic and no political, social and administrative reason can justify the recommendations, asserts Abdullah.
MYGanaie Nairang
Bogund Kulgam Kashmir
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