Delimitation commission to visit J&K for 4 days from July 6

SRINAGAR: As part of the ongoing delimitation exercise, the delimitation commission on Wednesday decided to visit J&K from July 6 to 9 to interact with political parties, public representatives and officials of the Union Territory.
The commission, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, would gather firsthand information and inputs concerning the process of delimitation for raising the number of assembly and Parliament seats in J&K.
“During this period (July 6-9), the commission will interact with political parties, public representatives and the Union Territory administration officials, including district election officers/deputy commissioners of 20 districts of the Union Territory to gather firsthand information and input concerning the ongoing process of delimitation as mandated under the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019,” read a handout.
The Delimitation Commission was constituted in March 2020 and its term was extended by another year in March 2021 in view of the ongoing pandemic.
Besides Desai, the commission has two ex-officio members and five associate members. While the two ex-officio members are chief election commissioner Sushil Chandra and state election commissioner of J&K KK Sharma, the associate members are Dr Jitendra Singh (junior minister and MP), Jugal Kishore Sharma (MP), Dr Farooq Abdullah, Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi. Singh and Sharma are from BJP and come from the Jammu division, while Abdullah, Lone and Masoodi belong to National Conference and are from Kashmir division.
Interestingly, at the all-party meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi held on June 24 in New Delhi, political parties were asked to cooperate with the delimitation commission, which had already had a series of meetings related to data map of the districts/constituencies related to Census 2011. According to a commission statement, earlier it had invited all associate members for interaction, but only two of them had turned up.