JK News Today
Jammu, December 14:
National Conference MPs, who are associate members of the Delimitation Commission , will attend the December 20th commission meeting , confirmed the party president Farooq Abdullah to JK News Today on Tuesday morning .
In a brief conversation with the JK News Today , Farooq Abdullah said “ Yes, we will attend the December 20th meeting of the Delimitation Commission.”
What will be your point of view at the meeting , to this question , Dr Abdullah replied : “ Let’s hear them first , what they have to say, then we will say what we have to say.”
This is for the first time that the National Conference has officially confirmed at the highest level that it would attend the meeting .
National Conference , the premier regional political party of Jammu and Kashmir that ruled the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir , which included Ladakh – now a separate Union Territory- , had not attended the previous meeting of the Commission , despite the fact that the three-party MPs in Lok Sabha- Farooq Abdullah ( representing Srinagar ) Akbar Lone ( Baramulla) , Hasnain Masoodi ( Anantnag ) and Farooq Abdullah were named as associate members .
Currently, the Commission comprises retired Supreme Court justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, Election Commissioner of India , and state election commissioner and two BJP MPs from Jammu – minister of state in PMO Dr. Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma .
Farooq’s party had stayed away from the previous meetings of the Commission, saying that the Delimitation Commission was the byproduct of the “ unconstitutional “ August 5, 2019 , decisions – the abrogation of Article 370 , bifurcation of the state . NC is opposed to all these decisions .
The rethink is owing to the apprehensions that the Commission , in its current form , may overlook interests of their people , as the BJP MPs are insisting that the new seats should be added keeping in view the area and the terrain of the regions . Jammu, which is having more area ( 26, 293 sq. kms.) than that of the Valley ( 15, 520 sq, kms) is reeling from a feeling of neglect for it has only 37 seats against that of 46 – that was the case in the last Assembly.
NC’s vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wants the population of the regions as per 2011 census should be the sole criteria in determining the seats that each region would get . The Valley’s population is 69,07,623 as against 53,50, 811 .
With NC taking part in the Delimitation Commission , the Kashmir Valley’s viewpoint would not go unrepresented , and that seemed to be the sole criteria for the party ,having its origins and support base in Kashmir, for its decision to join the deliberations of the Delimitation Commission.
Jammu and Kashmir’s assembly elections depend on the report of the Commission that has been assigned to allocate and delineate 90 constituencies in J&K. It has to allocate 90 seats . With the separation of Ladakh, J&K is left with 83 seas- the last Assembly had 87 seats , four of which came from Ladakh . Seven more seats have to be added to J&K’s Assembly .
