STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Seeking the amendment of sec 47 of the State Constitution as well as the J and K Representation of Peoples’ Act during the current session of the Legislative Assembly, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, has sought early delimitation of Assembly constituencies in the State in conformity with the promises made by the BJP during elections.
He said that delimitation is not possible by mere slogans or executive orders without amending the relevant provisions of law. He was addressing press conference at Jammu on Tuesday.
Singh said that assurances for delimitation and for ending regional bias were not only doled out by the central BJP leadership but the BJP’s vision document released during elections also categorically promised early delimitation of Assembly constituencies in J and K so as to ensure justice to Jammu region with 33 per cent seats reserved for women, five seats for displaced persons of PoJK out of 24 seats reserved for them in the State Constitution and three seats for Kashmir migrants.
Lambasting the lackadaisical approach of the government towards the main demand of Jammu region with failure of the Jammu Leaders to rake up the issue in Assembly, Harsh said that delimitation of constituencies which forms a part of the coalition’s Agenda of Alliance deserved a priority consideration with early constitution of Delimitation Commission so as to make possible the accomplishment of the delimitation exercise during the currency of the present coalition which otherwise was a time consuming process.
He said that delimitation process involving delimitation of constituencies, re-adjustment of territorial boundaries, rotation of reserved seats, identification of seats for fresh reservation, reservation of seats as proposed for women etc. should be completed in a time bound manner so that next elections are held as per the census 2011.
Emphasising the urgency to initiate the Delimitation process on war footing, Harsh said that geographical area, topography, number of voters, nature of terrain, inaccessibility and poor communication facilities are the factors which weigh heavily in favour of Jammu region and entitle it to a higher number of Assembly constituencies.
Quoting the officials statistics, Singh said that it was ironical that Kashmir valley with a total area of 15,953 sq. km had 46 Assembly seats as compared to 37 seats for Jammu region whose geographical areas was 26,293 sq km.
