The Delimitation Commission on Thursday recommended an increase of seven Assembly seats for J&K, from the earlier 83 seats in the erstwhile State to 90 seats now. While 43 seats will be a part of Jammu region, 47 seats will be in the Kashmir region.
This apart, for the first time nine seats have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes — six in Jammu region and three in the Valley. The Commission asked the Centre to also consider a provision of at least two members (one of them must be a female) from the community of Kashmiri migrants from Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) in the Legislative Assembly with the power of nominated members.
The Delimitation Commission, tasked with redrawing the Assembly constituencies of Jammu & Kashmir, was headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Desai. The commission signed the final order on redrawing the Assembly constituencies of the Union Territory, a day before its term was to end. A gazette notification for the same was also published on Thursday.
“Out of the 90 Assembly constituencies in the region, 43 will be a part of Jammu region and 47 of the Kashmir region keeping in view the provisions of Section 9(1)(a) of the Delimitation Act, 2002 and Section 60(2)(b) of the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. After consultation with associate members, representatives of political parties, citizens and civil society groups, nine ACs have been reserved for STs, out of which, 6 are in Jammu region and 3 ACs in the Valley,” the Commission said in its final report on Thursday.
There are five Parliamentary constituencies in the region. The Delimitation Commission has seen the Jammu & Kashmir region as one single Union Territory. Therefore, one of the Parliamentary constituencies has been carved out combining Anantnag region in the Valley and Rajouri, Poonch of Jammu region. By this reorganisation each Parliamentary constituency will have equal number of 18 Assembly constituencies each.
Names of some of the Assembly constituencies have also been changed keeping in view the demand of local representatives. These name changes included naming Tangmarg Assembly seat as Gulmarg Assembly seat, Zoonimar as Zaidibal Assembly seat, Sonwar as Lal Chowk, Padder as Padder-Nagseni, Kathua North as Jasrota, Kathua South as Kathua, Khour as Chhamb, Mahore Assembly seat as Gulabhgarh Assembly seat, Darhal as Budhal Assembly seat.
In addition to these, there were many representations pertaining to shifting of Tehsils from one Assembly constituency (AC) to another and some of them which Commission found logical were accepted, viz, shifting of Tehsil Shrigufwara from Pahalagam-AC to Bijbehara-AC, shifting of Kwarhama and Kunzar Tehsils to Gulmarg-AC and redrawing Wagoora-Kreeri-AC having Kareeri and Khoie tehsils and part of Wagoora and Tangmarg tehsils, shifting of Darhal Tehsil from Budhal-AC to Thannamandi-AC.
Additionally, there were some requests for minor changes in the territorial jurisdiction of proposed ACs, which were thoroughly analysed in the Commission and a few of them, which were logical, have been incorporated in the final order.
On the requests of Kashmiri migrants from PoJK to reserve few seats for them, the Commission has recommended the Central Government to consider at a provision of at least two members (one of them must be a female) from the community of Kashmiri migrants in the Legislative Assembly and such members may be given power at par with the power of nominated members, of the Legislative Assembly of Union Territory of Puducherry. “The Central Government may consider giving the Displaced persons from PoJK some representation in the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly, by way of nomination of representatives of the Displaced Persons from PoJK,” it said in the final order.
The Commission had interacted with approximately 242 delegations at four locations, i.e. Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kishtwar and Jammu during his first visit. Approximately 1,600 people attended and expressed their views at the public sittings held at Jammu and Srinagar on the 4th and 5th April, 2022 respectively, during the second visit of the Commission to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
In February, it was again given a two-month extension to complete its task. Its term was to otherwise end on March 6. Although the Commission was tasked to finish the delimitation process in a year, on March 4 this year, it was granted a year’s extension. This was done on the request of the panel members since it couldn’t make much progress due to the Covid-19 induced shutdown across the country.
Apart from Desai, Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and J&K State Election Commissioner K K Sharma are the ex-officio members of the delimitation panel.