Clamour to defreeze Assembly seats ‘reserved’ for PoJK : The Tribune India

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Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 20

Seat Demarcation

In the Legislative Assembly of J&K, 24 seats have been kept “reserved” to give representation to the areas of undivided J&K, presently occupied by Pakistan.
In undivided J&K, there were 111 Assembly seats before 1947.
As 33 per cent population from the occupied areas had migrated to this side of the LoC in 1947, refugees from those areas raised the demand of allotting them those reserved seats as per their population.

As the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has initiated the process of setting up the Delimitation Commission to redraw the territorial limits of the 90 Assembly segments of the newly created Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the demand for defreezing the seats “reserved” for displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJK) has gained momentum, with refugee leaders urging the Centre to address their political aspirations.

“The setting up of the Delimitation Commission is an opportunity to defreeze seats ‘reserved’ for displaced persons from the PoJK and ensure adequate representation to the displaced community,” Narinder Singh Raina, a refugee leader, said.

“The proposed Delimitation Commission has the mandate to redraw the territorial limits of the 90 Assembly segments of J&K, so long-pending demand of the PoJK refugees to defreeze seats ‘reserved’ for them should also be fulfilled through this panel,” Singh argued and pointed out that political empowerment of the PoJK refugees was a must in the new dispensation.

On Monday, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) had nominated Sunil Arora, Election Commissioner, as its representative to the Delimitation Commission for J&K after the MHA had approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) to nominate one of its members for the proposed panel.

In the Legislative Assembly of the erstwhile state of J&K, 24 seats were reserved for the residents of PoJK who were part of the undivided J&K before 1947. Refugees from the PoJK living in this side of the LoC have raised the demand of defreezing at least eight of these reserved seats as per the proportion of their population.

In the Reorganisation Act of J&K passed by both Houses of Parliament on August 6, 2019, the UT of J&K has been granted 90 Assembly segments with an increase of seven seats. The erstwhile State of J&K had 87 Assembly segments, but after Ladakh was carved out a separate UT, its four Assembly seats were reduced from J&K, leaving 83 Assembly seats for the UT.

The president of the Jammu Kashmir Sharnarthi Action Committee (JKSAC), Gurdev Singh, regretted that except promises, nothing had been done to politically empower the displaced persons from the PoJK. “What is the fun of ‘reserving’ 24 seats for the PoJK people?” he asked.