Parliament deserves credits for providing nomination of POJK DPs & Kashmiri migrants to J&K Legislature but they expected more care

DAYA SAGAR

Section-15A and 15(B) were added in J&K Reorganisation Act 2019, Act 34 of 2019 making strength in Legislative Assembly of UT of J&K 93- 95. But it is not out of place to mention here and is also worth taking note that the provision ( Section-15 ) regarding the nominated woman members may not be even executed ( is conditional) but those as regards Kashmiri migrants ( Section-15A) and POJK DPs (Section-15B) may surely be executed..
As regards the nominated members out of POJK DPs [section 15B it could be said that LG may nominate one person from POJK DPs and as regards nominated members out of Kashmiri migrants LG may upto two persons i.e not more than two ( not necessarily two) nominate Kashmiri migrants out of which one has to be a woman where in one could ask in case only one is nominated then should that be only woman ? Any how let us go for process of nomination . In these days utmost need has arisen for believable fairness of any action that designated authority takes and particularly when the power to authority is ‘almost’ discretionary and J&K is a UT.
As regards the nomination of woman members (upto to two) the Act authorizes the LG ( Section 15) laying down that if in his opinion, women are not adequately represented in the Legislative Assembly , so for this nomination first need is to ascertain the felt need and that could be done only after the results of elections held are declared. The results to elections held have been declared on 8th Oct and as per the ECI website three woman have also been elected as MLAs (Shagun Parihar BJP Kishtwar , pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in Electronics, defeating Sajad Ahmed Kitchloo over 500 votes;, Sakeena Masood, Kulgam and Shamim Firdous, Habbakadal of the National Conference ) . And in case one out of the two nominated MLAs out of Kashmiri Migrants happens to be a woman then there will be atleast 4 woman MLAs in LA and before nominating upto two more woman members in the LA the LG has to ascertain whether with 4 members woman are inadequately represented in the LA ?
But as regards the Kashmiri Migrants and POJK DPs are concerned they may be nominated as necessity but the issues there too are not that simple and if left to simple choice of LG or even choice of LG supported with the advice from the council of ministers there are all possibilities of people raising questions for fairness even when it is expected that a senior elder in the Chair of LG would be for all fairness.
But still it could be opined that in case the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 had instead provided for election of two additional members of LA of J&K UT out of the registered Kashmiri Migrants voters who are already provided the facility for casting their vote for 90 regular members of LA in polling stations to be set up outside Kashmir Valley ( in Jammu, Udhampur, Delhi ) and similarly for the registered POJK DPs to elect specifically one additional member of LA out of the POJK DPs ( although there has been no regular registration for them still it could be estimated that their number of 1947 times may be more than 42000 families and /1965/1971 times may be more than 10000 families and taken together may be more than 150000 families this day ) that could be better done by direct election by giving opportunity to the community instead of picking out members for nomination. The POJK DPs are already expressing their concern for naming only one member for nomination out of them even when for Kashmiri Migrants two members have been named for nomination.
As per Relief Commissioner Migrants Jammu as on March 2022 there was registration of 44089 Kashmiri migrant families in Jammu (Relief Category: Families:20822 & Persons:66387, Non Relief Category: Families:23267 & Persons:83886 ). Similarly religion wise numbers in March 2022 for Kashmiri migrants were (1) Hindu: Families:39868 & Persons:133326 (2) Muslim: Families:2574 & Persons:11092 (3) Sikh: Families:1642 & Persons:5836 (4) Other: Families:5 & Persons 19. No doubt some Kashmiri migrant families are registered in Delhi also. Numbers quoted here are just for broader idea.
It is not out of place to mention here that there is a good number of organizations of Kashmir Migrants and POJK DPs who had been working for their cause. There are many who also say that a good number of their demands have not been fulfilled so far during the times of different governments. So some have been suggesting that the members out of them should not be nominated but should be elected out of them with a condition that seats particularly dedicated to them be filled out of the POJK Migrants/ POJK DPs should put to open elections with the voting rights limited only to Kashmiri migrants / POJK DPs since they fear that in case there are nominations then the nominated members may find it difficult to raise questions on those who had ‘favoured them in nomination..
No doubt POJK DPs and Kashmiri Migrant families need a very compassionate & fair attention. Ofcourse the present Parliament deserves credits for creating such provisions for POJK DPs and the Kashmiri migrants but still something more could be done. So still in case provision for elections is created in the Act it would further strengthen faith of communities in the truthful intentions of the Parliament of India and it would not be of any loss in case the their election takes 3 to 4 months more after formation of government in J&K and that would also provide all sanctity to providing voting right to nominated members in the Assembly regarding constitutional matters. During this period it could also be seen whether more POJK DPs members are the need looking at their numbers since some are already expressing that POJK DPs have been given lesser representation compared to the Kashmiri migrants.
(The writer is Sr Journalist, analyst J&K affairs and social activist).