New Delhi: The will visit Srinagar and Jammu on April 4 and 5 to hear members of the public and civil society groups who have submitted suggestions and objections on its draft delimitation proposal for the Union territory.
Around 300 representations were received by the panel — headed by retired judge Ranjana Prakash
Desai and having chief election commissioner Delimitation Commission Supreme Court and J&K state election commission chief as ex-officio members – between March 14, when it placed its
delimitation proposal in the public domain, and March 21, the last date for people to submit objections and suggestions.
The public hearings – likely to conducted district-wise for the Jammu region in Jammu and for the region in Srinagar — will give a chance to the people and groups that have filed objections and suggestions on the proposed reconfiguration of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in J&K, to present their arguments before the delimitation panel.
Sources said most of the representations received by the delimitation commission are from Jammu (around 60), Anantnag (40) and (40). The ones from Anantnag mostly relate to objections regarding the proposal to redraw the Anantnag parliamentary constituency to include areas from both Jammu and Kashmir region and rechristen it as Anantnag-Rajouri.
Over 40 representations seek a change on nomenclature of the constituencies, while others have demanded inclusion or exclusion of certain areas from a redrawn constituency. Among the 300 representations received by the Commission are some purely congratulatory letters on the
Delimitation work; they do not contain any suggestion or objection to the delimitation proposal.
Not a single representation has been received from the two districts of Pulwama and Shopian, a source said.
An examination of the 300 representations received by the commission found many to be raising the same or similar issues. Hence, prior efforts may be made by the J&K chief electoral officer to convince the groups from every district to nominate a few representatives to place the arguments before the delimitation panel. This way, the Commission will be able to hear all views without any repetition.
Based on the public hearings, the delimitation panel may decide to rework the delimitation draft in line with what it feels are reasonable suggestions or objections of the public. The Commission hopes to bring out its delimitation award for J&K in early May.
The delimitation award cannot be challenged in any court of law. Of the seven seats to be added to J&K assembly, the delimitation panel has proposed six in Jammu region and one in Kashmir region. Interestingly, it has combined assembly segments from both Jammu region and Kashmir region to redraw the Anantnag parliamentary constituency, which will now be renamed as Anantnag-Rajouri. Each of the five parliamentary constituencies in J&K will comprise 18 segments.
In a first, nine assembly constituencies in J&K are proposed to be reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), of which six will be in Jammu division and three in Kashmir division. The number of assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Castes will remain 7.
