Why Omar Abdullah is for Assembly elections of J&K UT without regular Delimitation?

Have ‘they’ sensed there can be no more irrational Delimitation of single members segments of LA ?

Daya Sagar

Talking to media on this June 24, after the All Party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ex-J&K Chief Minister and Sr. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah has said <meeting mein koyi agenda nahintha… hum ne to apni party ki taraf se Wazir e Azam aur sab se kaha Jahan tak 5 August 2019 ka faisala hai hum us ke saath nahin hain…. umeedhai ki hamein adalat se insaf mile ga… why having delimitation exercise independent of rest of the country…you have set us apart from rest of country .. this delimitation exercise is something that has lead to lot of suspicion.
We want it to be relooked at …”In a way National Conference has said that Elections to the UT Legislative Assembly ( LA) be conducted without any fresh delimitation and let the elected representatives take the decisions like that of Delimitation ( no doubt he even indicated that “they’ demand restoration of Statehood even before that). Anyhow as also made known by Prime Minister to ‘invitees’ there is no likelihood of GOI agreeing to move a “Bill” for Statehood holding UT elections..
Let us still see how fair is the demand of Kashmiri leaderships through leaders like Omar Abdullah for holding the elections to UT Legislature without conducting regular Delimitation as per constitutionally laid parameters & requirements in hand i.e : (i.) Total seats in the Assembly have been increased from 83 to 90 (ii) Provision for reservation of seats for the Schedule Tribe in UT Assembly has now been made and hence these seats have to be determined & marked (iii) Seats to be reserved for SC too have to be reworked (a) out of 90 (b) &s of 2011 census population (c) SC seats too have to be relocated after many years. So, there is logic / possibility for getting the elections conducted for 90 seats of UT LA without a Regular Delimitation exercise. Hence it is surprising to find Omar Abdullah ji making such a suggestion.
Let us try to assess why a Sr. experienced leader like Omar Abdullah, who has been a MoS in Vajpayee lead Union Govt. & Chief Minister in J&K has made such irrational) suggestion. In 1951 Delimitation for Constituent Assembly of J&K was done on Adhoc basis distributing 43 Seats over areas in then Districts of Anantnag, Srinagar & Baramulla (assuming existing population on 1941 basis as 17,20,000 )and just 30 Seats over the areas in then Districts of Rajouri, Poonch, Doda, Udhampur, Kathua and Jammu ( assuming existing population on 1941 basis as 1200000 only).The Constituent Assembly that drew the J&K Constitution did work with patience and kept under Section-50 region wise elected members in Legislative Council i.e14 elected MLC for Districts of Rajouri, Poonch, Doda, Udhampur, Kathua and Jammu and 12 elected MLCs for Districts of Anantnag, Srinagar & Baramulla where as for the Legislative Assembly ( Section-47 & 48) then 75 seats for ‘election’ were kept for whole of the State with provision ( Section-47-3) for Delimitation to distribute seats over the areas for which 5 vital parameters were laid under J&K Representation of the People Act 1957 { Section- 4, Sub Section -2 Clause -a ( i ): Population Clause- a (ii ) : Geographical Compactness Clause – a ( iii) :Nature of terrain Clause – a ( iv) : Facilities of Communication Clause – a ( v) : And the like considerations } where in the spirit underlying was to provide a representative of nearness to the voter citizen in the LA. It was expected that after 1957 fair representation will be provided to people in the Legislative Assembly but still the adhoc ‘delimitation’ done for Constituent Assembly in 1951 was taken ahead. Thereafter only one Regular Delimitation was done from 1981 through 1995 ( on the basis of 1981 census) and that too was in total defiance of norms laid in J&K RPA 1957 ( Act no: IV) where out of 87 seats once again irrationally 46 were distributed over the areas that had constitutionally only 12 Elected MLC and only 37 over the areas that had constitutionally 14 elected MLC inspite of the fact that even the writer had presented a detailed note on delimitation in terms of the J&K RPA of 1957 to the Chairman Delimitation Commission in 1994.One key indicator ( even outside J&K RPA1957) for test check of 1995-Delimitation could be that it was nowhere near to *14:12:: 44-45:38-39 with total 83since it was something like 14:12::46:37 giving 46 MLA to Valley having less (12) elected MLCs.
All these years the Kashmir Valley leadership had been able to make the ‘experts’/ authorities go with population has to be the sole criteria and some working leaders / experts outside Kashmir valley too have been while raising questions on trueness of 2011 Census figures/ population of Kashmir Valley districts in a way unknowingly cultivating that population is the ‘main’ criteria where as for Legislative Assembly population is only of the five parameters (Geographical Compactness ,Nature of terrain, Facilities of Communication and the like). To get an idea one can see the weight that different MLAs carry when they vote in Presidential Elections ( say UP MLA- 208 points, J&K MLA- 72 points , HP- MLA 51 points, Sikkim MLA- 7 points) where as MP of all states carry equal points (708). Anyhow all these years enough work in this direction has been done to make it known that even if one goes with 2011 census data four out of 5 parameters go for areas outside Valley districts that have much larger inhabited area, bad / difficult terrain, much less road connectivity, difficult living conditions and like.
So, with the awareness having grown and same parameters having been also laid in the J&K Reorganisation Act , Act 34 of 2019 {Section-60 (2 :- “In determining the matters referred to in clauses (b) and (c) of sub-section (1), the Election Commission shall have regard to the following provisions, namely:- (b) all constituencies shall, as far as practicable, be geographically compact areas, and in delimiting them, regard shall be had to physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and conveniences to the public}atleast expectations have been there that the new Delimitation Commission will not hold to earlier irrational/ wrong exercises and hence will surely give due share of MLAs to areas outside Kashmir Valley out of total 90 MLAs near to atleast 14:12 ratio that was there for MLCs in the Legislative Council of erstwhile J&K State.
So it can be said that fearing a sure correction this time giving more MLAs to areas outside Valley the leaders like Omar Abdullah are making suggestions for elections without delimitation ( may be ‘he’ suggests again distributing newly added 7 seats in the ratio of 37:46 ) which will be a great injustice to distantly placed areas and people of UT of J&K and another wrong if done.
(Daya Sagar is a Sr Journalist & a known analyst of J&K affairs dayasagr45@yahoo.com)

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