Panel wants 2 seats reserved for migrants

Jammu and Kashmir has been treated as a single entity for the purpose of delimitation. “One of the parliamentary constituencies has been carved out by combining the Anantnag region in the valley and the Rajouri and Poonch of the Jammu region. By this reorganisation, each parliamentary constituency will have an equal number of 18 Assembly constituencies each. Names of some ACs have also been changed keeping in view the demand of local representatives,” a statement from ECI said.

The Delimitation Commission has also asked the government to nominate at least two members of Kashmiri migrants for the union territory’s Legislative Assembly, one of which should be a woman. “Provision of at least two members, one of them must be a female, from the community of Kashmiri migrants in the Legislative Assembly and such members may be given power at par with the power of nominated members of the Legislative Assembly of union territory of Puducherry. The Central government may consider giving the displaced persons from Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir some representation in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly by way of nomination of representatives of the displaced persons from Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” the order said.

The Delimitation Commission set up on March 6, 2020 by a law ministry notification was initially asked to examine the issue of redrawing the Lok Sabha and Assembly constitutions simultaneously in J&K, Assam and some other northeastern states.

However, when the commission had already laid the groundwork to start the delimitation exercise, the government excluded Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland from its purview for the time being. The exclusion raised many eyebrows in J&K and beyond. The Union government also extended its term by one-year in March last year and on the completion of it for another two months.