Jammu: National Conference (NC) has taken a guarded recourse, refraining from reacting to inputs that the Delimitation Commission may get another extension after the expiry of its already extended term on March 6 this year.
The party equally seemed to be clueless about the Commission’s reaction to its objections, submitted on December 31 last year, to the draft recommendations about increase in assembly seats for SC and ST population in J&K.
“We don’t have any information, be it the case of its likely extension or its decision to share its interim report with its Associate members shortly before putting it in public domain or for that matter any recommendation to increase Lok Sabha seat. Whatever we have come to know about it, it is through media reports like anyone else and not officially or through Commission by any means. Journalist friends deliberated on it. But we, as Associate members, did not get any kind of information other than these inputs from journalists,” Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi, one of the three NC Associate members, stated while speaking to Greater Kashmir.
“Even after National Conference Associate members submitted their objections to the Commission’s draft recommendations, we did not get any response from it. We did not get any information – neither verbally nor in writing,” Justice Hasnain said.
The Commission had shared the draft of its recommendations vis-a-vis increase in assembly seats for SC and ST population in J&K with its Associate members in a meeting convened on December 20, 2021.
“Even with regard to media reports that the Delimitation Commission-led by Justice (retired) Ranjana Prakash Desai is likely to share its interim report with its five Associate members for objections and suggestions before putting it in public domain, we’ve no information. No invite has reached us so far. So we, too, are clueless about it. Nothing of that sort has been deliberated with us, till date,” NC Associate member stated.
Commission’s five Associate Members include two Members of Parliament from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) i.e., Union Minister of State in PMO Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma and three NC MPs i.e., Dr Farooq Abdullah, Mohammed Akbar Lone and Justice Hasnain.
“Unless we get some information in black and white, only then we’ll be able to react or respond to such issues. But right now, we don’t have anything with us. Nothing is in our hands,” he said.
Earlier media reports quoting anonymous official sources stated that the Commission was likely to get another extension which may further delay assembly elections in J&K. Reports also suggested that the Commission was likely to share its interim report with its Associate members shortly before putting it in public domain.
As per the reports, the Commission, in its interim report, is also deliberating upon the possibility of increasing a Lok Sabha seat from Jammu region in J&K, raising its (UT’s) present strength from five to six in the Parliament or redrawing boundaries of existing LS constituencies.
However, official word is still awaited on this account.