New Delhi: The Delimitation Commission on Jammu and Kashmir has proposed six additional seats for Jammu region while one more assembly seat for Kashmir Valley, the sources said here on Monday.
The sources also said that the Commission arrived at the proposal to add more seats after the discussion with its five associate members held on Monday.
The Commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, had a meeting with the five Lok Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir for the consultations and were asked to respond to the proposal by December 31 this year.
The five associate members -- Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Jugal Kishore from BJP, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi and Mohammad Akbar Lone attended the meeting.
For the first time, the Commission has also proposed to reserve nine seats for the Schedule Tribe and seven seats for the Schedule Castes in the UT, the sources further said, adding that earlier there were no reserved seats for STs and SCs.
If the recommendations are implemented, the Jammu region will have 43 seats while the Kashmir Valley will have 47 seats.
Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra is an ex-officio member of the panel along with the chief electoral officer of J&K to re-structure the assembly seats in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in a view to give fair opportunity to candidates after the sizable increase in the population.
A Special Delimitation Commission was constituted on March 6, 2020 to redraw the Assembly and Parliament seats in the UT after the special status under Article 370 was revoked from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
The Commission met several leaders of national and regional political parties, administrators and civil society groups in Jammu and Kashmir in July and the exercise is being conducted on the basis of the 2011 census.
The key aim is to set up a Delimitation Commission to give equal representation to equal segments of the population in order to ensure a fair division of geographical areas so that all political parties or candidates contesting elections have a level playing field in terms of number of voters.
Kashmir based political parties are aggrieved over first draft recommendations of the Delimitation Commission.
Terming the draft report unacceptable -- the National Conference, PDP, Apni Party and the People's Conference said the new seats have not been allocated on the basis of 2011 census.
"The draft recommendation of the J&K delimitation commission is unacceptable. The distribution of newly created assembly constituencies with 6 going to Jammu & only 1 to Kashmir is not justified by the data of the 2011 census," former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted.
"It is deeply disappointing that the commission appears to have allowed the political agenda of the BJP to dictate its recommendations rather than the data which should have been its only consideration. Contrary to the promised "scientific approach" it's a political approach."
Former Chief Minister and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti said the report ignores population census and pitches people against each other.
"My apprehensions about the Delimitation Commission weren't misplaced. They want to pitch people against each other by ignoring the population census & proposing 6 seats for one region & only one for Kashmir," Mehbooba Mufti tweeted.
"This commission has been created simply to serve BJP's political interests by dividing people along religious & regional lines. The real game plan is to install a government in J&K which will legitimise the illegal & unconstitutional decisions of August 2019."
People's Conference Chief Sajad Lone said the recommendations of the commission are unacceptable.
"The recommendations of the delimitation commission are totally unacceptable. They reek of bias. What a shock for those who believe in democracy," Lone tweeted.
Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party President, Altaf Bukhari termed the proposal of Delimitation Commission not in sync with the census 2011, thus totally unacceptable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Referring to the media reports on the Delimitation Commission's proposal, the Party President regretted that the commission has bypassed the merits and demands of people's representation in its report thereby corroborating to the concerns and apprehensions of the people.
"The current proposal stands in total contrast to the process and guidelines mandated by the laws governing delimitation in the country. The district areas and their respective population numbers were to be taken into consideration as per the census of 2011 which for some unknown reason is missing from the said report," he said adding, not only the population criteria has been ignored but it seems that the commission has done away with the representational requirements of the existing administrative units.
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