J&K Delimitation recommendations erroneous, pre-determined

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission's recommendations were out of pre-determined false assessment, Congress leader and former Union minister Saifuddin Soz said in a statement on Thursday.

In a statement, he said, "The Commission's recommendation of adding six Assembly seats to Jammu region and only one seat to Kashmir smacks of its pre-determined erroneous assessment of the situation. Many observers had already suspected that the commission would play the nefarious game in tandem with the Union government," IANS reported.

He said that the commission did not appreciate the fact that a considerable number of Kashmiri people belong to castes which carry the same stigma as STs and SCs.

"Also, a glaring folly of the commission is that it has recommended to merge the Anantnag parliamentary constituency with Rajouri and Poonch. This is an impossible situation," he said.

"The Commission has further committed the blunder of allotting nine Assembly seats to SC/STs, of whom six belong to the Jammu region and only three to the Kashmir division. My understanding is that it is still possible for the Union government to consult the state's mainstream political class in this connection," he said.

On Thursday, the J&K Delimitation Commission finalized the delimitation order and submitted it to the Election Commission of India. The commission recommended 43 Assembly seats for the Jammu division and 47 seats for the Kashmir region. Nine Assembly constituencies got reserved for STs, and six of them are in the Jammu region, while three are in Kashmir. This is a first since the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state constitutions had no provision for ST reservation in the Legislative Assembly.