Former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai was on Friday appointed chairperson of the Delimitation Commission to redraw LokSabha and assembly constituencies of Union Territory Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, a Law Ministry notification said.
Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and state electioncommissioners of Jammu and Kashmir and the four states will be the ex officiomembers, it said.
The Commission will delimit the constituencies of Jammu andKashmir in accordance with the provisions the Jammu and Kashmir ReorganisationAct, and of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland in accordance withthe provisions of the Delimitation Act, 2002, the notification said.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 ofthe Delimitation Act, 2002, the central government hereby constitutes theDelimitation Commission for the purpose of delimitation of Assembly andParliamentary constituencies in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir andthe states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland…,” thenotification issued by centre government reads.
The order states that appointment of Justice (Retd) RanjanaDesai shall be for a period of one year from the date of the publication ofthis notification in the official gazette or till further orders, whichever isearlier.
According to section 60 of the Jammu and KashmirReorganisation Act, “…the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly ofUnion territory of Jammu and Kashmir shall be increased from 107 to114….”
Out of these, 24 seats have been kept forPakistan-administered Kashmir. So effectively, the seats will go up from 83 to90.
Delimitation is the process of fixing limits or boundariesof territorial constituencies in a legislative body.
The newly created Union Territory of J&K will be theonly one in the country to undergo a delimitation exercise based on thepopulation figures recorded in the 2011 census.
The latest readjustment of boundaries of constituencies inother States and UTs has been done on the basis of 2001 census and in future itwill be carried out according to the 2031 census.
An official said this provision for J&K was enabledthrough an amendment that was introduced in the J&K Reorganisation Act,2019.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act passed byParliament on August 6 downgraded and bifurcated the State of J&K into twoUnion Territories – J&K (with a legislature) and Ladakh (withoutlegislature). The J&K Assembly was dissolved in November 2018 while theregion has been under Centre’s rule since June 2018.
As per 2011 Census, the population in Kashmir region is68,88,475, Jammu has a population of 53,78,538 and Ladakh has 2,74,289.
As per a government answer in LokSabha last year, there were37,33,111 voters in Jammu division, 40,10,971 voters in Kashmir division and1,79,147 voters in Ladakh division in undivided J&K.
Delimitation was last done in J&K in the year 1995 whenthe state was under direct Central Rule. (with PTI inputs)