Jammu and Kashmir opposition parties protest delimitation report, seek its rejection

JAMMU: Terming the recently submitted delimitation report as biased, politically motivated and against the basic norms and ground situations of connectivity and contiguity, several J&K opposition parties and social organisations on Tuesday jointly held a sit-in protest in front of the Election Commission office in Jammu and sought rejection of the report.
Senior leaders of opposition parties including Congress, National Conference, PDP, CPIM, CPI, IDP, Shiv Sena and Akali Dal (Badal) attended the protest, which also saw the participation of social organisations like Statehood Mission, Deshbhagat Yaadgar Committee, JMF and others.
Leaders of different political parties and organizations unanimously rejected the report and said that their joint struggle would continue. “Political parties have their respective stated positions on different issues but are unanimous in their opposition to the report of the delimitation, which is highly objectionably biased and contrary to the basic norms,” said former MP Sheikh Abdul Rehman.
JKPCC chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma said that the report in its present form was not acceptable to almost all non-BJP political parties and needed to be reviewed before its acceptance if the government was interested in doing justice to the people and holding free and fair elections.
Former minister and senior NC leader Ram Pal criticized the report, terming it biased and against the basic criteria of delimitation. PDP leaders Amrik Singh Reen and Varinder Sonu echoed the same views and opposed the report on various grounds. Shiv Sena leader Munish Sahni said the report was against the interest of common people in various constituencies.