According to a government decision, Jammu and Kashmir assigned 20 nodal officers, one in each district, to assist the Delimitation Commission in reorganizing new constituencies in the following nine months.
“The nodal officers shall be responsible for assisting deputy Commissioners in providing timely information as may be sought by the Commission. Receiving representations from stakeholders for submission to the Commission and any other work as may be assigned by the Commission,” reads the order issued by Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, commissioner secretary to the UT government.
Former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai heads the commission that was constituted in March 2020 to redraw the Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies of Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland. The commission has nearly nine months left to complete the exercise. It will also carve constituencies to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the first time in Jammu & Kashmir.
The commission on Friday assured that the exercise to carve out new assembly constituencies in the union territory will be conducted transparently and tried to allay fears of any gerrymandering. It rejected People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) allegations that it was pre-decided and aimed to disempower people to realize the ‘political vision of a particular political party’.
During its stay in Jammu and Kashmir, the commission met 280 delegations comprising 800 people in Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kishtwar and Jammu. However, the PDP stayed away from the commission.
The delimitation issue was discussed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with political leaders from Jammu & Kashmir on June 24. The Centre has sought the completion of the delimitation exercise before assembly polls are held there. However, People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a grouping of mainstream political parties such as the National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said they were disappointed over the outcome of the meeting with PM.
All major political parties, except the PDP and the ANC, have met the commission and submitted memoranda of suggestions and demands on the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir.
While the majority of the parties have suggested that population should be the main criteria for reorganisation of constituencies, the People’s Conference and the CPI(M) demanded that the census figures of 2011 should be made the benchmark for the exercise.
