| Delimitation meaningful only if seats of Jammu region increased, says Harsh Dev | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Mar 24: Referring to the process of delimitation initiated in J&K, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and former Minister today said that it would be meaningful only if the assembly and parliament seats of Jammu region were increased.
He said that demand for Delimitation had been persistently raised by NPP besides other civil society groups in view of a highly biased treatment doled out to Jammu region in the matter of allocation of seats. While Jammu region with a geographical area of 26293 square kilometers had been assigned merely 37 Assembly seats, 46 seats in the Assembly had been allocated to the highly mollycoddled Kashmir region with an area of 15953 square kilometers.
In Kashmir region, the average size of an Assembly Constituency was 346 square kilometers as against an average size of 710 square kilometers for a Jammu region Assembly Constituency. Likewise the Kashmir region had been allocated three Parliamentary seats as against two such seats for Jammu. Such political imbalance being the root cause of blatant discrimination against Jammu region, the disparity in seats needed to be removed by assigning due share to both the regions of the J&K UT. Likewise, the promise of the BJP incorporated in its vision document of providing atleast 8 seats out of 24 seats reserved for POK to the migrants of that region settled in Jammu needed to be fulfilled, asserted Mr. Singh.
Harsh Dev Singh said that under the J&K Reorganization Act, Jammu region is entitled a higher number of seats vis-à-vis Kashmir in view of the criteria laid down in section 60 of the said Act.
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