Srinagar, June 23: Delimitation Commission member and Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bushan Kumar Wednesday held a meeting with all 20 deputy commissioners of J&K with regard to delimitation of assembly constituencies.
The meeting with the DCs who are also district election officers was held in two batches in which the DEC Kumar took note of the issues – both administrative as well as topographic – in the districts.
“Deputy Commissioners informed the Deputy Election Commissioner about the administrative difficulties faced by them with respect to the assembly constituencies; apart from it the Election Commission of India collected data about the mismatch in details about the electoral constituencies and administrative units,” said a senior official who was part of the meeting.
This exercise gains significance as it was held a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to chair a meeting with 14 political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir, including four former chief ministers.
This is the first such exercise since the Centre’s decision of revoking Article 370 — a provision that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir — and bifurcation of the state into two Union territories in August 2019.
This is the first meeting called by the Election Commission representative in the Delimitation Commission with the Deputy Commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir, after the Delimitation Commission was set up in March 2020.
The Delimitation Commission headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai had held a meeting with five Associate Members – the Lok Sabha MPs from Jammu and Kashmir – in February this year.
After completion of a one-year term of the Delimitation Commission on March 5, 2021, the Law Ministry had extended its tenure by another term i.e. till March 2022.
Before Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act in August 2019, the effective strength of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was 87, including four seats from Ladakh, which is now a separate Union Territory without a legislature. The strength of the realigned Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is presently 107, in effect 83 with 24 seats vacant for Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK).
According to section 60 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, “The number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir shall be increased from 107 to 114.”
With 24 seats in PaK, the effective strength will go up from 83 to 90.
The elections to the Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be held only after the process of delimitation is completed.