Jammu, May 11: Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) chief spokesperson on Wednesday picked holes in the assertion of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) that everything was fine with the delimitation report.
JKPCC chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma alleged his (CEC’s) assertions lacked convincing argument, in view of “unreasonable dissections of several constituencies, large variations in inter-se population and totally against the geographical situations etc.”
Referring to a recent interview of CEC justifying the final report, JKPCC chief spokesperson alleged, “It amounts to adding insult to injury. The vast majority of people irrespective of political affiliations, caste, creed, colour, religion and region were raising voice against several anomalies, hoping for some modifications to rectify the blunders but the one sided draft report was finalised.”
“The CEC should know how the existing segments were unreasonably split and readjusted in such a manner that no settled norms appear to have been kept in mind , be it contiguity, connectivity, population, geographical situation and public convenience, in most cases. There are examples of large variations and deviations from norms within district, district to districts, regions and there is no uniformity in population, area, topography,” he maintained.
Sharma said that Congress always impressed upon adhering to the delimitation norms, in letter and spirit and justice to all areas, however the same was not done in this case.
“Rajouri-Poonch is neither having proper connectivity or topographical/ geographical contiguity rather Kishtwar, Banihal had better parameters of contiguity, geographical, topographical situation and connected with highway or other routes but why Rajouri-Poonch was clubbed with Anantnag,” he asked.
Sharma pointed out that the earlier delimitation report was put before the state legislature in 1987 and following objections by representatives, it was referred to the Review Commission. “This is the right approach in a democracy and the party shall continue to raise its voice individually and collectively, against the injustice with the most areas, putting the public at inconvenience and disadvantage,” he added.