Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 7: A delegation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits led by Dr Ramesh Raina held a meeting with Justice Mrs. Ranjana Desai, Chairperson Delimitation Commission .The other members of the delegation included, Sanjay Sapru, B B Bhat, Ashok Bhat and Rajiv Pandita.
Dr Ramesh Raina made the presentation before Commission by stating that the displaced Kashmiri Pandit Community was rendered as politically irrelevant which resulted in the community becoming an abandoned child. Consequently, it became easy for anti-Kashmiri Pandit forces to kill them unsung and unwept and force an exodus on them. He made a brief mention of the electoral history of post independent Kashmir, wherein the unfortunate people were gradually reduced as people of no significance.
He however saw a ray of hope in the Delimitation Commission as an institution to address the issue of granting political representation by making them electorally relevant to the mainstream politics of the UT.
B B Bhat in his remarks drew the attention of the Commission towards the census of 2011,which he termed as far away from truth as it has failed to enlist the actual numbers because of the wide dispersal of the community.
Sanjay Sapru , another member of the delegation echoed the same sentiments and urged the Commission to do justice with beleaguered community.
Dr Ramesh Raina urged the Commission that, displaced Pandits seek an institutional protection to safeguard the electoral prospects of the hapless minority now living in exile. With the Delimitation Commission in place ,there exists a body that could be laying guiding parameters for providing representation to the unrepresented people of the place .This has become possible only after the passage of the Re-organization of J&K Act of 2019,its implications for the restoration of faith and confidence in the displaced people have become more pronounced as there is a wide spread belief that the discrimination against them will come to an end by a judicious delimitation process, Raina added.
To rectify the non-representation, the delegation demanded creation of a legitimate electoral space at all the conceivable areas of electoral activity of UT, their rightful participation in mainstream political life of the place through a guaranteed electoral mechanism.
The delegation demanded at least four to five Seats in assembly and one in Parliament commensurate with the mechanism evolved for the purpose.
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