Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 5: Fourth successive election to the State Assembly, which is due to be held by the end of this year, would not witness any change in seven seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), in the absence of the Government’s refusal to go for territorial adjustments and rotation of reserved seats, which had to be done after every 10 years notwithstanding freeze on increase in the Assembly and Parliament seats till 2026.
Official sources told the Excelsior that eight per cent Assembly seats reserved for the SCs in Jammu and Kashmir, which accounted for seven seats in the House of 87 would go to fourth consecutive election of the Assembly without any rotation, which would not only deprive general category candidates of all political parties and Independents in the reserved seats of their right to constest but could also deny an opportunity to category candidates on other seats, which would have been declared reserved in the event of territorial adjustments.
The Parliament had in 2002 freezed any increase in Lok Sabha and Assembly seats till 2026. While the law was not directly applicable to Jammu and Kashmir, the then State Government also freezed increase in Assembly seats and setting up of the Delimitation Commission.
Sources, however, pointed out that there was no bar in territorial adjustments and rotation of reserved seats of Lok Sabha or Assembly seats by setting up a Delimitation Commission. The Parliament as well as several State Assemblies had set up the Delimitation Commission and adjusted territorial boundaries of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats to maintain balance of voters and change the seats reserved for SCs and STs.
Jammu and Kashmir Government, however, didn’t set up Delimitation Commission and, therefore, not only the reserved seats remained unchanged since 1996 Assembly elections but even boundaries of the seats were also not altered, a result of which some seats continued to have large number of electorates while few others had very less number of voters.
Jammu and Kashmir has seven seats reserved for SCs, all of which fall in Jammu region as there was virtually negligible population of SCs in Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
Seven seats reserved for the SCs in Jammu region include Chhamb, Domana and RS Pura in Jammu district, Hiranagar in Kathua district, Chenani in Udhampur district, Samba in Samba district and Ramban in Ramban district.
All these seven seats were declared reserved for SC candidates by the Delimitation Commission in 1993-94 and first Assembly elections to them were held in 1996 after about seven years spell of President’s rule in the State. The reserved seats had to be rotated after two Assembly elections of 1996 and 2002. They had to undergo change in 2008 elections by setting up a Delimitation Commission (prior to the polls) with a direction to look into territorial adjustment and change in reserve category seats.
“However, this didn’t happen. Not only 2008 Assembly elections were held with same seats reserved for SC candidates but not 2014 Assembly polls would also be held in the similar manner. This would be fourth successive Assembly election with same seats reserved for the SC candidates,” sources said, adding that an influential lobby of political leaders both within the ruling Alliance as well as Opposition didn’t want rotation of Assembly seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes as it could affect their political prospectus.
Sources disclosed: “while some influential political leaders don’t want their reserved seats to be opened for general category candidates and some general category candidates don’t want their seats to be reserved. This is true for both ruling coalition partners, mainly the Congress, as well as the Opposition”.
This was the reason that the Government didn’t set up the Delimitation Commission for rotation of reserved category seats and change in territorial adjustments while some of the Opposition leaders did ask for the Commission to be set up to increase Assembly seats of Jammu bud didn’t stress for rotation of reserved category seats despite the fact that it was going to be fourth successive election with same seven seats reserved for the SC candidates.
Of present seven seats reserved for SC candidates, three each are represented by the BJP and Congress while Nationalist Panthers Party (NPP) holds one.
BJP represents Domana, RS Pura and Hiranagar while Congress has Chhamb, Chenani and Ramban. NPP holds Samba reserve seat.
Three seats are reserved for SCs in Jammu district (Chhamb, Domana and RS Pura) while one seat each is reserved in four other districts including Hiranagar in Kathua, Chenani in Udhampur, Samba and Ramban.
There are five districts including Reasi, Doda, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch, where no Assembly seat is reserved for SCs.
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