Srinagar: The National Conference and other political parties have slammed the draft report of the Delimitation Commission.
According to the NC MPs, none of the suggestions made in response to the earlier draft proposal, shared in Dec 2021 with the associate members, have been incorporated in the fresh interim proposal.
The delimitation commission constituted by the Modi government had proposed six additional assembly seats for the Jammu region and only one more seat for Kashmir in their first, “Draft Proposal”. The recommendation was considered as an “assault on political and supremacy of Kashmir in J&K’s politics and “part of the series of measures started by BJP-led government from 5th August 2019 to disempower Kashmiris of IIOJK”.
NC rejected the interim report, saying the recommendations were “unconstitutional”. The second draft can be termed as a blatant move of “Gerrymandering” to redraw the limits of constituencies to create Hindu majority. In representative democracies, Gerrymandering refers to political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent of creating undue advantage for a party, group, or socio-economic class within the constituency.
Two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering: “cracking” and “packing” The Commission has proposed redrawing of five out of eight Assembly segments of the capital Srinagar. Under the new recommendations, the Habba Kadal Assembly segment, which had a sizable number of Kashmiri Pandit voters, has been split into three seats. Wide-scale merger and creation of new constituencies in north Kashmir and central Kashmir’s Budgam has been proposed. The Kunzer area is likely to be a new Assembly segment, while Sangrama will be merged into other constituencies in north Kashmir.
Rajouri and Poonch districts, which have a significant population of Hindus, will be a part of south Kashmir’s Anantnag parliamentary constituency, earlier dominate by Muslims. The proposal would take the number of assembly seats in Jammu to 43 from existing 37, and to 47 in Kashmir from 46. Omar Abdullah said, “The draft recommendation of the J&K delimitation commission is unacceptable.
The distribution of newly created assembly constitution with 6 going to Jammu & only 1 to Kashmir is not justified by the data of the 2011 census”. Mehbooba Mufti said. “The real game plane is to installed a government in J&K which will legitimise the illegal & unconstitutional of August 2019”. “My apprehensions about the Delimitation Commission weren’t misplaced. They want to pitch people against each other by ignoring the population census & proposing 6 seats for one region & only one for Kashmir”. Sajad Gani Lone said the proposal “reeks of a bias” and is a “shock to those who believe in democracy in Kashmir”. The recommendations of the delimitation commission are totally unacceptable. They reek of bias. What a shock for those who believe in democracy. The Gupkar alliance has also unanimously rejected the proposal of the delimitation commission on the line of their previous two declarations in the context of Indian illegal action of removing the status of statehood.
Indian is going to have delimitation in 2026 and through India has no legal Jurisdiction to include Jammu and Kashmir being disputed region in the light of UN resolutions, India illegally undertook the exercise in the garb of abrogation of Article 370 & 35A. India has deliberately done the delimitation, so that it can hold and win election to convince the world of its resolution to the democratic values. Web Desk
