Panthers Party demands equal division of seats between Jammu and Kashmir

JAMMU: A delegation of five J&K National Panthers Party (JKNPP) leaders, led by its president Prof Bhim Singh, called on the Delimitation Commission in connection with the delimitation process in J&K and demanded that the commission should distribute the seats on 50:50 basis between two provinces of Union territory.
Besides Prof Singh, the delegation included Harsh Dev Singh, former education minister P K Ganju, senior vice president, Miss Anita Thakur, Mohd Iqbal Chowdhary, and S Paramjit Singh Marshal.
The Panthers Party also presented a strong memorandum to the Delimitation Commission, which includes Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai, Chief Election Commissioner Mr Sushil Chandra and Mr Chandra Bhushan, Dy Election Commissioner.
Addressing the Delimitation Commission, Prof Singh said that the first priority should be to reduce internal and external tension and asked for an end to political discrimination.
He told the Commission that the Parliament has fixed 90 Assembly seats for J&K and demanded that the Delimitation should distribute the seats on a 50:50 basis, that is 45 assembly seats for Kashmir province and 45 for Jammu province.
He said the 50:50 formula shall ease the tension between the two regions make people happy.
He however regretted at Ladakh region being ignored for this exercise. He urged the Delimitation Commission to convey the demand on behalf of the Panthers Party that Ladakh should also have an Assembly.
He also pleaded that Scheduled Tribes (Gujjars, Bakerwals and Gaddies) should be given reservation as has been provided in the law made by J&K and urged for the shifting of reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes (SC) as their reserved seats have not been rotated since the past three Assembly elections.
Prof Singh also pleaded with the commission that statehood of J&K should be restored without delay and assembly elections should be held on the ad-hoc delimitation as is available this time.