Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said that she had no faith in the delimitation commission which was “working on the BJP’s agenda”.
Through delimitation, India only wanted to lend ‘legitimacy’ to its illegal actions of 5 August 2019. So-called delimitation exercise in IIOJK is Modi regime’s sinister ploy to further disempower Kashmiris. The Delimitation Commission had finalized 90 assembly constituencies for IIOK, excluding Ladakh with 43 seats for Jammu and 47 for Kashmir.
Earlier, Jammu had 37 seats and the Kashmir valley had 46. Delimitation Commission was aimed at “disenfranchising and disempowering” the Muslim majority population of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the revised electoral map drawn by the delimitation panel, average population of an assembly constituency in the Muslim-majority Kashmir will be 1.4 lacs, while it will be only 1.2 lacs in Jammu, which is the bastion of the ‘saffron’ party. Redrawing of constituencies in IIOJK is meant to further manage so-called assembly polls. Gerrymandering of constituencies is another move on part of Modi regime to change IIOJK’s demography.
Modi must remember that no amount of gerrymandering can change ground situation in IIOJK. Delimitation exercises were in direct contravention of the relevant UNSC resolutions and international laws, including the 4th Geneva Convention.
According to 2011 Census, Jammu’s BJP stronghold population is only 53 lacs, around 15 lacs less than the Kashmir Valley’s population of approximately 68 lacs. The entire delimitation exercise was farcical and had already been rejected by the cross-section of political parties in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan categorically rejected the so-called “Delimitation Commission” for Jammu and Kashmir and written a letter to UN on illegal delimitation exercise in IIOJK by India. Web Desk
