Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 3: Terming assurances of BJP leaders regarding delimitation of Assembly constituencies in J&K as hollow slogans, Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP chairman said the delimitation is nowhere in sight despite the formation of Delimitation Commission last year and its tenure ending on March 6, 2021.
Addressing a press conference here today Singh said that BJP had made tall claims of increasing the seats in the newly created J&K UT to 90 and enhancing the share of Jammu region through delimitation exercise and this was also the most favourite slogan of BJP in 2014 elections which later on proved to be a mere gimmick.
“After the formation of Delimitation Commission no action seemed to have been initiated despite the tenure of the Commission is ending soon. No representations from the public representatives or political parties were invited, no meeting of Commission was held, none of the members of the Commission ever visited J&K for physical assessment and no meeting of even Associate members was ever convened,” JKNPP leader claimed.
Stressing for the urgency to initiate the delimitation process on war footing, Harsh Dev said, geographical area, topography, number of voters, nature of terrain, inaccessibility etc are factors which weigh heavily in favour of Jammu region and entitle it to a higher number of Assembly constituencies.
He said that it was ironical that Kashmir valley with a total geographical area very less as compared to that of Jammu has 46 Assembly seats while there are only 37 such seats for Jammu region.
Singh also said that in terms of voters also there are disparities with constituencies in Kashmir like Gurez having merely 16,000 voters against around two lakh voters in Jammu west and Gandhi Nagar constituencies.
“Kishtwar region provided the most glaring example of discrimination as it has only two assembly seats with an area of 7824 sq km which was half of the area of entire Kashmir region,” he claimed.
Rajesh Padgotra, provincial president JKNPP; Gagan Pratap Singh, state secretary; Parshotam Parihar, state secretary, Panthers Trade Union and Raj Pratap Singh, provincial president NPSU were also present in the press conference.
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