With the announcement of alliance in Kashmir after Gupkar Declaration, political temperature in the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory has been high from a while. Adding to it, Ikkjutt Jammu, which is soon going to be formalized a political party, is planning to launch a protest for its call for separate statehood for Jammu.
Ankur Sharma, who is the chief of Ikkjutt Jammu, condemned the delimitation which is taking place on the basis of 2011 census which he called fraud. He even called the present ongoing political activities like Gupkar Declaration anti-national and blamed that the Union Territory administration and the Central Government for not taking cognizance and action against it.
He alleged that the Central Government and UT administration did not take required steps after the Articles 370 and 35A were abrogated. He said that this was the main reason which led to “seditious” and “communal” declaration by these so-called mainstream political parties of Kashmir.
He believes that follow-up steps after abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A would have led to the logical conclusion. Jammu should have been declared a separate state and Kashmir split into two Union Territories, he said. Ankur Sharma added that since no steps were taken, it gave rise to the “Anti-India gang” which uses the same language as Mohammed Ali Jinnah used to speak before independence.
He didn’t seem very satisfied with the delimitation process too in which legislative seats in the UT will be redrawn. His main problem with the delimitation remains that the data used in the process of delimitation will be of Census 2011 which he calls fraud. Other than that, Sharma believes that this is a political conspiracy against the people of Jammu to make sure that the power gets concentrated in the Kashmir.
Providing numbers, Ankur said that if the delimitation is carried out by Census 2011 then Kashmir will get around 52 seats out of 90. But, if numbers of Census 2021, which is yet to happen, are used then Jammu will get 50 seats and not 38 and will even have a CM.
The Delimitation Commission is remarking constituencies for four north eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir UT since March this year. Once the delimitation process is finalized then the assembly elections are expected to take place.