Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission gets a one-year extension

Indicating that the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir will be further delayed, the government has extended the term of the Delimitation Commission to complete the re-drawing of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in the union territory.

The Delimitation Commission, which is headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, came into being after the Centre revoked the special status of the erstwhile state and bifurcated it into two union territories.

A gazette notification extending the term of the Commission was issued on Wednesday night.

The panel was set up to redraw the electoral constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. The extension is given only for Jammu and Kashmir.

The government had notified the setting up of the Delimitation Commission on March 6 last year.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 provides for increasing the number of Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir by seven after a delimitation process.

The Act has earmarked a total of 107 seats for the whole of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, including areas in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK). It provides for an increase in seats from 107 to 114 through a delimitation exercise and all the seven new ones will be created in the areas which are not occupied by Pakistan.

The State Assembly, which was dissolved with the bifurcation, had 87 seats with a six-year tenure while the new Assembly will have a tenure of five years only.

Of the 107 seats, the Act said 24 seats falling in PoK will remain vacant and should not be taken into account for reckoning the total membership of the Assembly. This would make the effective strength of the House at 83, including six seats under the reserved category.

Of the 87 seats in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, four fell in Ladakh, which is the second union territory carved out of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.