NPP protests against bias, prejudices in interim report of Delimitation Commission

JKNPP activists during a protest demonstration outside Election Commissioner’s office in Jammu. -Excelsior/Rakesh
JKNPP activists during a protest demonstration outside Election Commissioner’s office in Jammu. -Excelsior/Rakesh

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 7: Describing the Delimitation report recently submitted by the Commission to the Associate members as biased, defective and anomalous, a huge contingent of NPP led by Harsh Dev Singh (chairman JKNPP and former Minister) held a massive protest demonstration outside Nirvachan Bhawan today.

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The protesters seeking  parity between the two regions of J&K in the matter of allocation of Assembly and Parliamentary seats called for removal of all imbalances as well as deficiencies in the report. They raised slogans against BJP Government and Delimitation Commission for conniving in the process of preparation of draft report and ignoring the suggestions given by the opposition parties and civil society during their interaction with the Commission.
Speaking on the occasion, Harsh Dev Singh accused the Delimitation Commission of having ignored the ground situation and prepared the draft as per the dictations of the ruling party. “The constituencies have been created casually in a haphazard manner by defying the prescribed parameters governing the process of Delimitation,” Harsh added.
“Moreover, 47 seats had been allocated for Kashmir against 43 for Jammu region, the imbalance in Parliament was allowed to continue with a portion of Jammu region having been annexed with Anantnag Parliament seat of Kashmir. Not only that several areas of Jammu region which had remained reserved for 27 years , since the last delimitation exercise of 1995, were again included in reserved constituencies thereby defeating the very objective behind rotation of seats at the  time of every fresh delimitation”, stated Harsh.
He said that there were several areas in every district of J&K which had been similarly treated giving rise to massive resentment therein amongst the masses. He called upon Delimitation Commission to review its draft report and remove all the defects and anomalies which were anti-people, arbitrary and based on communal lines.