Prof Hari Om
On July 6, many delegations met visiting Delimitation Commission’s Chairperson former SC Judge Ranjana Desai and other members at Srinagar Lalit Hotel to put forth their points of view and submitted their proposals. As was expected, PDP boycotted the Commission. BJP and J&K Apni Party, also called King’s party, met the Commission cheerfully. Other parties, including the NC, the Congress, the People’s Conference (PC) and the CPIM did meet the commission but reluctantly. They all tell almost the same thing to the Delimitation Commission panel: They accepted the invitation despite the fact that they considered ‘ongoing delimitation exercise unconstitutional’; that ‘the delimitation exercise should have been undertaken after converting UT of J&K in a full-fledged state’ and that exercise must be ‘fair and transparent’.
Almost all the delegations told the Commission that the basis of delimitation must be population alone. The PC said that ‘the party has told the Panel that no steps should be taken that would further alienate the people of J&K. Delimitation exercise should be done as per the population. Land, deserts and stones don’t need representation. It is the people who need representation and decision should be taken as per the population. There are rumours that aim of the delimitation is to dis-empower people in Kashmir’. The NC said that it urged Commission to not take into consideration any criteria other than population. “Population has to be the only norm as has been the practice here in past in J&K,” the NC told the Commission. The CPIM said that it told the Commission that ‘under present circumstances, the 2011 census should be taken as the guiding frame for delimitation exercise’.
The short point is that Kashmiri parties urged the Delimitation Commission to overlook Section 60 of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019. Section 60, inter-alia, says, ‘all the constituencies shall, as far as practical, be geographically compact area, and in delimiting them, regard shall be paid to physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and conveniences to the public’. There is no ambiguity in the Act whatsoever.
Hence, to delimit the assembly constituencies on basis of 2011 ‘fudged census figures’ will be construed as an act of gross discrimination with the already suffering people of Jammu province. It will also constitute a negation of J&K Reorganization Act, 2019, itself. The 2011 census figures show a huge gap of 15 lakh people between Kashmir and Jammu province. That these were not genuine figures could be seen from number of registered voters in Jammu province and Kashmir. During general elections of 2014, the total number of the registered voters in J&K were 70,16,366, with number of registered voters in Kashmir 36,99,139 while in Jammu, their number was 33,17,227 – a difference of just about 3.8 lakh. This difference clearly suggests that 2011 census figures were manipulated in favour of Kashmir.
It needs to be underlined that Jammu province will get at least 42 seats on basis population/voters’ strength. And if geographical criteria, as laid down in the J&K Reorganization Act, 2019, is taken into consideration, and which must be, Jammu province will get a minimum of 56 seats and Kashmir will be divided into 34 territorial constituencies only. Remember, the land area of Jammu province is 26,293 sq km, as against Kashmir’s 15,953 sq km – almost 11,000 sq km more area than Kashmir. Not just this, Jammu province will get a few more additional seats, if two other criterions – physical features and communication — as laid down by J&K Reorganization Act, 2019, are taken into consideration and applied in letter & spirit.
It would not be out of place to mention here that the nature of terrain in Jammu province is highly difficult and treacherous and most of the areas in province are almost inaccessible because of the poor road connectivity. Like Kashmir’s Gurez and Karnah, Jammu province too has many difficult hilly areas to which no delimitation commission paid any attention whatever. Some of the hilly and mountainous areas in Jammu province include Surinsar and Pargwal in Jammu District; Pouni in Reasi District; Dudu Basantgarh, Lohi-Malhar, Bhamag and Lander Panchari in Udhampur District; and Pogal Paristan and Neel in Ramban District.
It is also important to note that road density in Kashmir was 310.4, as against 138.7 in Jammu province.
To be more precise, in Kashmir, the per sq km road density is as high as 49 Km and in Jammu province, it’s a paltry 5.5 Km.
This is what the Task Force, which was constituted by the them Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006, says. No wonder then that most of the towns and villages in Jammu’s mountainous and hilly areas are inaccessible.
It is hoped that the Delimitation Commission would reject the ill-designed and ill-motivated suggestion that delimitation must be done on the basis of the 2011 population figures and that it would delimit them on the basis of the latest population figures and also apply the three other criteria in letter and spirit. This hope stems from the fact that the Delimitation Commission is headed by distinguished Justice Ranjana Desai.