Opposition parties and civil society organisations on Monday rejected the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) delimitation report submitted by a panel earlier this month claiming it ignores “ground realities” and is “politically motivated”.
The remarks came at a meeting of the major political opposition parties — National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI, among others — and civil society groups which included the Statehood Mission and the Deshbhagat Yaadgar Committee at the Jammu press club on Monday.
A statement issued after the meeting said a joint agitation would be launched against the delimitation commission’s report, in front of the Election Commission of India at Jammu.
Alleging that the commission’s recommendations were formulated at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the statement said the report was against geographical realities as well as norms of uniform population, compactness continuity, connectivity and public convenience, besides being highly biased.
According to the statement, it was decided that a sustained campaign would be held against the delimitation to educate local residents.
“The Delimitation Commission has totally ignored the ground realities and neglected the convenience and aspirations of the people of different areas, widened gap of population between different constituencies ranging from 37,000 population to 1.90 lakh population, ignored the geographical, topographical situations and broadly public convenience…” the statement quoted the leaders as saying.
“The exercise of public hearing by the Commission was an eye wash aș the draft report was prepared at behest of ruling party, which was widely opposed by the people from different areas, regions, districts and assembly segments, on various genuine reasons but same was finalised, without properly considering the large no representations submitted by the general public and opposition parties,” the statement added.
“The meeting decided to jointly launch a struggle and a sustained campaign to oppose the (delimitation) report and awaken the general public, starting from a joint sit-in this week in front of the election commission (office) here,” read the statement.
