Jammu: Leaders of the National Conference (NC) are expected to attend next week’s meeting of the Delimitation Commission, reports say.
The three NC Lok Sabha members, Farooq Abdullah, Hasnain Masoodi, and Akbar Lone – who are associate members of the panel tasked with redrawing the boundaries of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies, had not attended an earlier meeting of the panel in February.
After receiving an invitation from the panel, the party has sought the agenda of the meeting of associate members scheduled to be held on December 20.
We have sent a letter to the Delimitation Commission and we have asked them to make us aware of the agenda of the meeting, provide us the agenda items and provide us all the material concerning that (the agenda items),” NC MP from south Kashmir’s Anantnag, Hasnain Masoodi said.
Last time the party had written to the panel that its parliamentarians cannot attend the meeting since the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, “is under judicial scrutiny” in the Supreme Court of India. The party had also questioned the singling out of J&K for delimitation and demanded a transparent process.
The Commission is led by Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra with Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan as its members.
Apart from three NC Lok Sabha members from Kashmir, the two other associate members of the panel are BJP leaders Jugal Kishore Sharma and Union Minister Jitendra Singh
Sources said that NC has changed its stand this time because it doesn’t want the panel’s affairs to be one-sided with just BJP leaders attending it. Also, this comes at a time when there has been a growing political activity on the ground with speculation of assembly election to be held in the Union Territory since the deadline of the commission is March 2022.
The panel had visited the UT in July last year. All parties, except Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP, had met the panel members then. The visit came less than two weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met 14 leaders from Jammu and Kashmir on June 24.
The delimitation commission was constituted and asked to carve out Assembly and Parliament seats in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
Jammu and Kashmir has been under Centre’s rule since June 19, 2018, following the collapse of the coalition government headed by Mehbooba Mufti after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew its support.
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