Last Updated on February 8, 2021 at 8:24 pm
The Delimitation Commission for Jammu and Kashmir is going to organise its first-ever meeting with Associate Members. This meeting is scheduled to be held at its office in New Delhi on February 18 to discuss delimitation of Assembly constituencies in the Union Territory.
This meeting is organised by Justice (Retired) Ranjana Prakash Desai, chairperson of the Delimitation Commission at Hotel Ashoka in New Delhi on February 18.
This meeting is to be attended by a retired Judge of Supreme Court and the Delimitation Commission members like Sushil Chandra, Election Commissioner and KK Sharma, State Election Commissioner (SEC) Jammu and Kashmir. From the Associate Members side, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, Dr Farooq Abdullah, Jugal Kishore Sharma, Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi and all Lok Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir are invited to attend this meeting.
Three National Conference MPs were announced to be Associate Members of the Delimitation Commission, however, the party had announced that it will detach itself from the Commission.
On March 6 2020, The Union Ministry for Law and Justice constituted this commission. This is first time when a meeting between the Delimitation Commission and Associate Members is to take place.
The Commission is tasked to delimit the constituencies of the Union Territory according to the provisions of Part V of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019 and Delimitation Act, 2002.
The Union Home Ministry had increased Assembly seats of Jammu and Kashmir after bifurcating the erstwhile state into two Union Territories. Total seats in J&K have been increased to 114. 24 of these seats are reserved for Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Earlier, State of Jammu and Kashmir had 111 seats, out of which 24 were reserved for PoK. As Ladakh was created as a separate Union Territory, four seats were reduced and only 83 seats remained with the Assembly. Now, J&K UT will have an Assembly of 90 seats.
Earlier, Kashmir had 46 seats in the Assembly while Jammu had only 37. The last delimitation of the Assembly constituencies was held in 1994-95. In that delimitation, seats of the erstwhile State Assembly were raised from 76 to 87. Jammu region’s seats were increased from 32 to 37, Kashmir division’s from 42 to 46 and Ladakh’s two to four. However, this delimitation was freezed in 2002.
