Stage set for Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir

Delimitation Commission completes marathon exercise

The Delimitation Commission headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai, Sushil Chandra, (Chief Election Commissioner), and K K Sharma, (State Election Commissioner, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir), as Ex-Officio members of the Delimitation Commission Thursday finalized the Delimitation order for the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. The Gazette notification for the same has also been published today.

With this, the ball is now in the court of the Election Commission of India as they are expected to conduct the polls after updating the electoral rolls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already promised the restoration of the region’s statehood after the elections.

As per the final Delimitation Order, the following will come into effect from the date to be notified by the Central government:-

Out of the 90 Assembly Constituencies in the region, 43 will be part of the Jammu region and 47 for the Kashmir region keeping in view the provisions of Section 9(1)(a) of the Delimitation Act, 2002 and Section 6o(2)(b) of Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2O19.

The Delimitation Commission also made the following recommendations to the Central government.

1. Provision of at least two members (one of them must be a female) from the communities 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.
2. The Central government may consider giving the Displaced Persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir some representation in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, by way of the nomination of representatives of the Displaced Persons from Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

After consultation with associate members, representatives of political parties, citizens, and civil society groups, 9 Assembly constituencies have been reserved for STs, out of which,6 are in the Jammu region and 3 in the Valley.

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 the Anantnag region in the Valley and the Rajouri & Poonch of the Jammu region. By this reorganization, each Parliamentary Constituency will have an equal number of 18 Assembly Constituencies each.

Names of some ACs have also been changed keeping in view the demand of local representatives.

It may be recalled that the Delimitation Commission was constituted by the Govt. of India, in the exercise of powers conferred by Section 3 of the Delimitation Act, 2002 (33 of 2002, for the purpose of delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

The Commission associated in its work, 5 members of Lok Sabha elected from the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. These Associate Members were nominated by the Speaker of Lok Sabha.

The Delimitation Commission was entrusted with the work of delimiting the Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the 2O11 Census and in accordance with the provisions of Part-V of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 (34 of 2Ol9) and the provisions of Delimitation Act, 2OO2 (33 of 2OO2).

The Delimitation Commission has reserved 9 ACs for STs for the first time and 07 for SCs. It is worthwhile to mention that the Constitution of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State did not provide for the reservation of seats for the Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly.

Criteria

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, and Delimitation Act, 2002 laid down the broad parameters within which the delimitation exercise was to be carried out. However, the Commission formulated guidelines and methodology for delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, for smooth functioning and effective results, and the same was followed during the delimitation process.

Keeping in view the geographical features, means of communication, public convenience, and contiguity of areas as various factors enumerated in Section 9(1) of the Delimitation Act, 2002, and the inputs gathered during the Commission’s visit to the UT from the 6th to 9th July 2021, the Commission categorized all 20 districts into three broad categories i.e. A– Districts having predominantly hilly and difficult areas, B– Districts with hill & flat areas and C– Districts with predominantly flat areas, giving a margin of +/- lO % of the average ‘population per Assembly Constituency while proposing an allocation of the Constituencies to the districts.

The Commission has also, for some districts, proposed carving out an additional Constituency to balance the representation for geographical areas having inadequate communication and lack of public conveniences due to their excessive remoteness or inhospitable conditions on the international border.

The Commission had decided that Constituencies shall be delimited having regard to the administrative units i.e. Districts, Tehsils, Patwar circles, etc, as in existence on 15-06-2020 and the commission had communicated to the UT administration, not to disturb the administrative units as existing as on 15-O6-2O20 till the completion of the delimitation exercise in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. It was ensured by the Commission that every Assembly Constituency shall be contained entirely in one district and the lowest administrative units i.e. Patwar Circles (and Wards in Jammu Municipal Corporation) were not broken and were kept in a single Assembly Constituency.

The Commission took extreme care in identifying the seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly and to locate seats to be reserved for these communities, as far as practicable, in areas where the proportion of their population to the total population is the largest, by working out the percentage of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes population in each Assembly Constituency and identifying the requisite number of reserved Constituencies by arranging them in descending order.

The public sittings were organized in the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar on 4th and 5th April 2022 respectively, which provided an opportunity for the people, public representatives, political leaders, and other stakeholders to express their views. All those who filed objections and suggestions in response to the public notice were specifically heard. All the suggestions of the public, given in writing or orally during the public sittings and representations from various stakeholders were tabulated by the Secretariat of the Commission.

The Commission conducted a final round of internal meetings to examine all the suggestions and took decisions on the changes to be made in the draft proposals. Most of the representations regarding the change of names of the proposed Constituencies were accepted by the Commission in view of the public sentiment involved in the same.

Names of Assembly Constituencies changes

These name changes included naming Tangmarg-AC as Gulmarg-AC, Zoonimar-AC as Zaidibal-AC, Sonwar-AC as Lal chowk-AC, Padder-AC as Padder-Nagseni-AC, Kathua North-AC as Jasrota-AC, Kathua South-AC as Kathua-AC, Khour-AC as Chhamb-AC, Mahore-AC as Gulabhgarh-AC, Darhal-AC as Budhal-AC, etc.

In addition to these, there were many representations pertaining to shifting of Tehsils from one AC to another, and some of them that which Commission found logical were accepted, including shifting of Tehsil Shrigufinrara from Pahalgam-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.

Territorial changes

Additionally, there were some requests for minor changes in the territorial jurisdiction of proposed ACs, which were thoroughly analyzed in the Commission, and a few of them, which were logical, have been incorporated in the final order.

Challenges faced by the Commission

The Delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir had been a challenging task. The Commission visited the UT of Jammu and Kashmir twice. During the first visit, the Commission interacted with approximately 242 delegations at four locations, i.e. Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kishtwar, and Jammu. Approximately 1600 people attended and expressed their views at the Public sittings held at Jammu and Srinagar on 4th and 5th April 2022 respectively, during the second visit of the Commission to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.

The peculiar geo-cultural landscape of the Union Territory presented unique issues arising due to factors like competing political aspirations of the geographically and culturally distinctive Jammu and the Kashmir regions; vast differences in population density between districts ranging from 3436/ sq. km in districts in the valley-plains on one side to 29/sq. km in the predominantly hilly and difficult districts on the other; the existence of sub-regions within certain districts having extremely difficult intra-district connectivity due to extraordinary geographical barriers with some remaining totally cut off on account of the snow blocking the mountain passes for months during winter; the uncertainty of life and inadequate availability of connectivity and public conveniences in villages along the International Border prone to unprovoked intermittent firing/shelling in the Border Districts; etc.

These competing claims to the equitable exercise of democratic rights by populations living in inequitable conditions, besides other aspects, were well articulated on behalf of all the diverse areas of the UT by representatives of political parties, social organizations, and individuals, as well as the media which provided profound insights before the Commission and contributed in upholding the democratic values cherished by the people of this largest democracy in the world, in providing of a fair and robust framework by carrying out appropriate Constituencies for the exercise of their right to the franchise by the members of the electorate living in mutually diverse circumstances, in an equitably convenient manner.

The reaction of political parties

National Conference

Reacting to the final report of the Commission the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference tweeted, “We have seen the final recommendations of the Delimitation Commission. We are studying the implications of these recommendations for individual assembly constituencies. No amount of gerrymandering will change the ground reality which is that whenever elections are held the voter will punish the BJP & it’s proxies for what they have done to J&K over the last 4 years”.

We have seen the final recommendations of the Delimitation Commission. We are studying the implications of these recommendations for individual assembly constituencies. No amount of gerrymandering will change the ground reality which is that…

— JKNC (@JKNC_) May 5, 2022

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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