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| BJP again hoodwinking people of Jammu province | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 21: The BJP president told media persons that his party would do all that it could to force the authorities to constitute a delimitation commission so that it redraws the boundary of the assembly constituencies afresh. His argument was that after the delimitation of the constituencies Jammu would obtain its due share of representation in the assembly and this would mitigate the sufferings of the people of Jammu province. Earlier on April 18, former BJP national president Rajnath Singh had made a similar statement in Jammu while addressing media persons. His argument was that the people of Jammu province would continue to suffer discrimination so long as they do not get their due share of representation in the assembly.
What the BJP national president and president of the state unit of the BJP said could not be questioned. Both were right when they emphasized the need of constituting a delimitation commission. However, both the BJP leaders did not refer to the role of eight BJP legislators in the assembly in February 2002, when the NC government introduced an amendment to the Representation of the People's Act seeking a ban on delimitation of the assembly constituencies until 2026. The amendment said that the assembly constituencies would be delimited only after the census that would take place after 2026.
In other words, the amendment, which was against the spirit of the Representation of People's Act and the Indian and the State Constitutions and which could be construed as a deliberate onslaught on the right of the people of Jammu province to due representation, clearly suggested that delimitation of the assembly constituencies shall not be possible before 2035. It also meant that Kashmir would continue to elect 46 members to the assembly till 2035 and the people of Jammu province would have no other option but to elect only 37 members, notwithstanding the fact that the Jammu province is two times bigger than Kashmir province in terms of geographical area and that the bulk of territory in Jammu province is mountainous, inaccessible and difficult; and that the number of voters in this province is almost equal to that of Kashmir.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Representation of People's Act says that the parliamentary and assembly constituencies shall be delimited after every census/after every ten years on the basis of land area, nature of terrain and accessibility and population. It would also be important to note that the Union Government had also amended the Representation of People's Act in 2001-2002, but it had nowhere said that parliamentary and assembly constituencies shall not be delimited until 2026. It had only said that the number of seats in the parliament and the state assemblies shall not be increased. Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in India that adopted the amendment in a modified form. It not only said that the number of seats in the assembly shall not be increased, it also said that there shall be no delimitation of the assembly constituencies.
As mentioned earlier, neither the BJP national president nor the state BJP president referred to the role of the BJP legislators in the assembly when the ruling NC moved an ill-designed and ill-conceived amendment to the People's Representation Act. The role played by the BJP legislators was out-and-out anti-Jammu and they hit the people of Jammu province below the belt by extending their unqualified support to the anti-democratic amendment. All the eight BJP legislators, without any exception, joined hands with the NC and voted for the amendment.
It must remain a matter of shame that a party, which became a party to the anti-Jammu amendment, now says that it would fight for the rights of the people of Jammu province and undertake activities aimed at forcing the authorities to set up a delimitation commission. The BJP has forfeited its political and moral right to speak on this issue because it bartered away the interests of the people of Jammu province in order to remain in the good books of the NC. It is doubtful if the attitude of the BJP towards the people of Jammu province has undergone any change. Its controversial, rather negative, role in the just-concluded budget session of the assembly does suggest that the BJP is not a dependable party. (To be continued)
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