Decks cleared for redrawing boundaries of Assembly seats
SC seats to be rotated, STs to get reservation
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, May 27: In a major way forward towards delimitation of 90 Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir before conduct of first Assembly elections in the Union Territory, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla today nominated associate members to the Delimitation Commission set up by the Centre for J&K and other States headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai. The members among others include Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh and National Conference patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah.
Birla nominated the members under Section 5 of the Delimitation Act of 2002, official sources told the Excelsior.
Nomination of associate members of the Delimitation Commission by the Lok Sabha Speaker has facilitated the Delimitation Commission to undertake the exercise for delimitation of Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir to clear decks for first elected Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory.
Sources said the Lok Sabha Speaker has nominated associate members for the Delimitation Commission of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.
The nominated members included Dr Jitendra Singh, Lok Sabha member from Kathua-Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat, Dr Farooq Abdullah, the National Conference president and Lok Sabha member from Srinagar, Mohammad Akbar Lone, Lok Sabha MP from Baramulla, Jugal Kishore Sharma, MP from Jammu-Poonch constituency, Hasnain Masoodi, Member of Parliament from Anantnag, Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of State for Sports, Dapir Gao, Pallav Lochan Dass, Abdul Khaliq, Rajdeep Roy, Dilip Saikia, Nabha Kumar Sarania, Lorho Pfoze, Ranjan S Raj Kumar and Tokheho Yepthomi.
The Delimitation Commission is headed by Ranjana Prakash Desai, a retired Judge of Supreme Court and has Sushil Chandra, Election Commissioner of India as its member. Sources said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) J&K Hirdesh Kumar will also be a member of the Delimitation Commission for J&K in his capacity as the CEO of the Union Territory.
“With nomination of associate members to the Delimitation Commission by the Lok Sabha Speaker, decks have been cleared for the Commission to undertake exercise for delimitation of 90 Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, a mandatory exercise for conduct of Assembly elections in the Union Territory,’’ sources said.
The Central Government had constituted the Delimitation Commission on March 7 with Ranjana Prakash Desai as the Chairperson. The Election Commission of India had nominated Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra as its representative member to the Commission.
The order didn’t mention the time period in which the Delimitation Commission will submit report, but it said the appointment of Justice Desai will be for a period of one year or till further orders whichever is earlier which indicated that the Commission might take an year’s time for fixing boundaries of 90 Assembly seats granted to the Legislature of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Commission will delimit the constituencies of the Union Territory in accordance with the provisions of Part V of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019 and Delimitation Act, 2002.
While splitting Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories through the Reorganization Act, which was approved by the Parliament on August 6 last year, the Union Home Ministry had increased Assembly seats of Jammu and Kashmir by seven taking total seats to 114—24 of which are reserved for Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) while election will be held for 90 seats.
Erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir had 111 seats including 24 reserved for PoK while elections were held for 87 seats. With creation of Ladakh as Union Territory, four seats of the region were reduced and the Assembly was left with 83 seats. However, with increase of seven seats, J&K UT will have an Assembly of 90 seats. Two Women MLAs will be nominated to the House, which was the position earlier also.
In the previous Assembly, Kashmir had 46 seats, Jammu 37 and Ladakh four.
Delimitation of the Assembly constituencies was last held in 1994-95 during the President’s Rule when seats of the erstwhile State Assembly were raised from 76 to 87. Jammu region’s seats were increased from 32 to 37, Kashmir’s from 42 to 46 and Ladakh’s two to four. However, the delimitation was freezed in 2002 by the then National Conference Government headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah in lines with the decision taken by then Central Government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Elections to the Legislative Assembly will be held only after delimitation of Assembly constituencies is completed.
According to sources, there can be altogether different Assembly constituencies with different boundaries as it will not be binding on the Delimitation Commission to stick to the segments, which existed in previous Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly.
The delimitation of Assembly seats has become necessity as it would be treated as new Assembly altogether with reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Scheduled Castes enjoyed reservations in the previous State Assembly also where seven constituencies were reserved for them including Chhamb, Domana, RS Pura, Samba, Hiranagar, Chenani and Ramban, all in Jammu region, while STs had been denied political reservations.
“The STs will get political reservations for the first time in the history of Jammu and Kashmir,” sources pointed out.
It may be mentioned here that seats reserved for SCs had to be rotated after every two terms but in the erstwhile J&K State Assembly, four elections were held on the same reserved seats without rotating them. The Delimitation Commission could now reserve seats in different areas for the SCs, they said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
