3-member body to exclusively carry out exercise in J&K
Jammu Tawi, Mar 4: Just two days before its tenure was set to end, the delimitation commission constituted by the Government of India has got one-year extension.
The Union Ministry of Law & Justice has issued an order for extension of term of the panel's head Justice (retd.) Ranjana Desai by one year.
Assembly Elections in J&K are unlikely to be held anytime soon as the Delimitation Commission has got a one-year extension to finish its task of redrawing the parliamentary and assembly constituencies in the Union Territory.
The panel's term was set to end on March 5 as it was constituted on March 6, 2020.
The NC and PDP have been protesting against Delimitation as they say its an attempt to change the power centre of J&K from Kashmir to Jammu by increasing seats in Jammu Region which benefits the BJP.
In another interesting development, the Centre has excluded Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland from purview of the panel's mandate, leaving it exclusively for delimitation of electoral constituencies of J&K.
The panel has been mandated to fix boundaries for 90 Assembly seats and five parliamentary segments of Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory. It has also been tasked to reserve seats for schedule castes and schedule tribes.
Going by the laws and parameters governing reservation for SCs and STs, 18 seats are likely to be reserved in the UT Assembly.
It is worthwhile to mention that Assembly of the erstwhile state of J&K had 87 seats, of which four seats were Ladakh. Ladakh is no more part of Jammu & Kashmir from October 31,2019 when it started functioning as a separate Union Territory.
It is pertinent to mention that National Conference has opposed the delimitation exercise. In a letter addressed to Delimitation Commission chairperson Justice (retd.) Ranjana Desai, the party has demanded that the exercise should be put on hold as the law under which it was set-up is under judicial scrutiny at present.
The strength of the realigned J&K Assembly is 107 now with 24 seats to continue to remain vacant as those fall in Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJK).
According to section 60 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, “…the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir shall be increased from 107 to 114….”
With 24 seats in PoJK, the effective strength will go up from 83 to 90.
The elections to the assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be held only after the process of delimitation is completed.
