With the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act in place, the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday held internal discussions on different aspects of redefining the boundaries of Assembly constituencies in the two new Union Territories. The meeting was attended by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, election commissioners Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra, and other senior officials of poll body.
There were indications that Assembly elections in the state could be held around October-November; however it seems unlikely that it will be conducted before next year, since the delimitation exercise will take a few months. Elections cannot he held in the State after November, keeping in view the weather conditions.
Sources in the EC said it was a meeting to inform the commission members about the provisions of the Act and the process that was followed for carrying out delimitation when new States such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were carved out. Sources did not comment on how soon the poll panel will begin the process of delimitation as the decision to start delimitation or setting up delimitation commission will be done by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Sources said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is yet to formally write to the poll panel on the issue of reorganisation of the State and the delimitation exercise as per the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act. Senior EC officials are learnt to have briefed the Chief Election Commissioner and fellow Election Commissioners about the Act. Once the EC gets a formal word from the Government, it will call officials from the MHA and Jammu & Kashmir for discussions, the sources said.
As of now, Kashmir region has 46 seats followed by Jammu region with 37 and Ladakh with four. The BJP in Jammu and Kashmir has been raising the issue of reorganisation of the State so that Jammu gets a larger share of seats in the 87-member State Assembly.
Delimitation is the process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province with a legislative body. According to Section 60 of the Act, “The number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir shall be increased from 107 to 114”. According to the Act, the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir will have an Assembly. The Union Territory of Ladakh will not have an Assembly.
The exercise of delimitation will be carried out in J&K after over two decades, in 2002, the J&K Assembly had passed a law putting a freeze on fresh delimitation of seats till 2026.