Jammu and Kashmir: After NC, now Apni Party rejects Delimitation Commission's second draft

The Apni Party led by Altaf Bukhari has rejected the proposals of the Delimitation Commission for Jammu and Kashmir and termed the process adopted by the panel as 'unfair and unscientific'.

"Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party once again rejects the draft working papers regarding the delimitation of constituencies in J-K," it said in a statement.

This comes in the wake of the Delimitation Commission proposing an overhaul of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir in its second draft report on Friday and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference on Saturday slamming the draft report, saying it "defies any and all logic" and no political, social and administrative reason can justify the recommendations.

Farooq said they were earlier told that the delimitation exercise was being undertaken to make Assembly seats contiguous with the district. "But the draft report is showing a different picture altogether," he said.

Copies of the draft have been handed over to five associate members from the Union Territory for their suggestions. The five associate members are Farooq Abdullah, Hasnain Masoodi and Akbar Lone (Lok Sabha MPs from the National Conference) and Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore (BJP MPs). They have been asked to submit their views by 14 February after which the report would be put in the public domain.

What the new draft says

AThe report proposes to redraw the Anantnag Parliamentary seat by including Rajouri and Poonch from the Jammu region, besides carrying out massive changes in the Kashmir division. Barring Khanyar, Sonwar and Hazratbal Assembly seats of Srinagar district, all other seats have been redrawn and merged with new Assembly seats being carved out like Channapora and Srinagar South, officials said.

Voters from Habba Kadal will now be part of at least three Assembly seats in the new proposed report.

Similarly, Budgam district, which had five Assembly seats, has been redrawn and merged with Baramulla Parliamentary constituency besides splitting some of the areas and carving out new Assembly seats like Kunzer in North Kashmir.

Sangrama seat in North Kashmir has been merged with other Assembly seats. Pulwama, Tral and some areas of Shopian, which formed part of the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, will now be part of the Srinagar Parliamentary seat.

The Delimitation Commission

The Commission headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Desai with Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and state election commission KK Sharma was set up on 6 March, 2020 and was granted an extension of a year on 6 March, 2021.

It was tasked with redrawing Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir and had proposed increasing Assembly seats in Jammu region by six to 43 and in Kashmir region from 46 to 47.

This is the panel’s second draft report. The first draft was submitted in December 2021.

With input from agencies

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