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| What Sheikh Abdullah did to enslave Jammu, Ladakh | | No delimitation in 1852, 1962, 1972, 2002 | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, June 29: Jammu & Kashmir was the first state in India post-1947 that elected its Constituent-cum-Legislative-Assembly in 1951. In rest of the country, people went to elect first Lok Sabha and state assemblies in 1952. But een before his government appointed the first Delimitation Commission in 1952 for delimiting the Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies and holding elections in the country, the then Indian Prime Minister JL Nehru already, in 1951, had delegated the job of delimitation in J&K to Kashmir-based Sheikh Abdullah, who was known for his hatred for Jammu. Without going through the proper exercise of constituting a Delimitation Commission, Sheikh Abdullah arbitrarily decided to have a State Legislative Assembly with 100 members. Not just this, he earmarked 43 for the small Kashmir valley, 30 to huge Jammu province and a paltry 2 to Ladakh, the state's largest region, overwhelmingly Buddhist-majority. Besides, Sheikh Abdullah decided that the remaining 25 seats would be left vacant until the time Pakistan Occupied-Jammu & Kashmir (POJK) returned to India.
Worse still, the Sheikh Administration rigged the elections 100% to ensure an all-NC assembly. His administration rejected the nomination papers of all the non-NC candidates with JL Nehru swinging solidly behind the Sheikh.
It needs to be noted that unlike in the rest of the country, none of the basic factors, namely, population, nature terrain, land area, accessibility, proper assigning of reserved seats and reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, was applied. The whole truth is that the Kashmir valley constitutes only about 8% of the original J&K's land area and less than 16% of the part remaining with India, while Jammu constitutes about 26% and Ladakh 58%. In other words, it was a canny move of Sheikh Abdullah to keep the majority legislative power of the state Assembly in the hands of Kashmir valley, permanently.
It is also important to note that although the rest of India has had four delimitations in 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002, J&K Government was never asked by New Delhi to hold a proper delimitation in all these seven decades. In 1995, the state constituencies were delimited during Governor's Rule, but it was done without a systematic delimitation exercise. Rather, this "delimitation" only helped in further perpetuating Kashmir valley's manipulated majority in the Assembly.
The total number of seats was increased was increased from 100 to 111. 24 seats were kept reserved the POJK areas. Out of the remaining 87 seats, 46 were given to Kashmir, 37 to Jammu and 2 seats each to Leh and Kargil in Ladakh. A provision of seven reserved constituencies too was made for Scheduled Castes, but all of these seats have been taken from Jammu's share, while not a single reserved seat was kept in the Kashmir valley.
New Delhi would do well to appoint a delimitation commission so that Jammu and Ladakh got a proper representation in the assembly and 72-year-old Kashmiri domination on the state polity ended and ended for all the times to come. Experts say Jammu could get as many 48 seats in the 87-member assembly if delimitation is done as per the laid down criteria. |
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