🧸As the delimitation—the redrawing of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituency boundaries based on population shifts—is now at the centre of a major political controversy, in Jammu and Kashmir the delimitation exercise was carried out on the basis of parameters beyond population. The exercise started after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was described by the political parties as gerrymandering.
ౠ“If you take the delimitation exercise carried out in Jammu and Kashmir into consideration, then you will see no one was consulted. Public representatives were not consulted, peoples’ concerns were ignored, and parliamentary seats were created in such a way that it looked like they wanted to favour only political parties,” says PDP leader Waheed Parra.
ꦚOn May 05, 2022, after two years, the Delimitation Commission, headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai (a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India), Sushil Chandra (chief election commissioner), and K. K. Sharma (state election commissioner, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir), completed the exercise. The Delimitation Commission, apart from the population, has taken “the peculiar geo-cultural landscape of J&K, competing political aspirations of the geographically and culturally distinctive regions; vast differences in population density between districts” into consideration while delimiting constituencies.
✱The Commission formulated guidelines and methodology for delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir while considering geographical features and means of communication, public convenience as major factors. It categorised J&K into three broad ways: “districts having predominantly hilly and difficult areas, districts with hill and flat areas, and districts with predominantly flat areas, giving a margin of +/- 10 per cent of the average population per Assembly Constituency, while proposing allocation of the constituencies to the districts.”
ꦆ“The Commission has also, for some districts, proposed carving out of an additional constituency to balance the representation for geographical areas having inadequate communication and lack of public conveniences due to their excessive remoteness or inhospitable conditions on the international border.”
𝓡The J&K Assembly was dissolved in November 2018, and the region was first under Governor’s rule and then under the President’s rule since June 2018. The government had been saying the elections in J&K will be held after the Delimitation Commission completes its exercise and gives its report. Even after the final report was out, the polls were held in 2024, two years after the report.
At that time, former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had described the report of the delimitation commission as an extension of the BJP. “The Commission ignored population as criteria to delimit the constituencies and adopted their own methods,” Mehbooba said. She said the delimitation commission was part of an exercise that was carried out by the BJP 🧸on August 5, 2019, to disempower the people of J&K.
Before August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated🌞, the State of Jammu and Kashmir had 111 seats, including 24 reserved for PoK, and elections were held for 87 seats. With the creation of Ladakh as a Union Territory, four seats of the region were reduced, and the Assembly was left with 83 seats. In the previous Assembly, Kashmir had 46 seats, Jammu 37, and Ladakh four.
🎃The Last Delimitation Commission was set up in 1995 with Justice (Retd) K K Gupta as its Chairman when the State was under the President’s rule. The Gupta Commission had increased J&K’s Assembly seats from 76 to the present 87. Of 76 seats, Jammu had 32, Kashmir 42 and Ladakh 2. Of 87 seats of J&K Assembly, Kashmir has 46 seats, Jammu 37 and four in the Ladakh division.
🐽The delimitation commission increased six Assembly seats in Jammu. Nine seats have been reserved for STs, out of which six are in the Jammu region and three are in the Valley.
ꦇThere are five parliamentary constituencies in the region. The Delimitation Commission has seen the Jammu & Kashmir region as one single unit. “Therefore, one of the parliamentary constituencies has been carved out, combining the Anantnag region in the Valley and Rajouri and Poonch of the Jammu region. By this reorganisation, each parliamentary constituency will have an equal number of 18 assembly constituencies each,” the commission had said.
