In News:
- The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Delimitation Commission has announced the new boundaries, names and number of Assembly constituencies in the Union Territory (UT) of J&K.
- This will pave the way for the first-ever Assembly elections in the Union UT created from the former state of J&K in 2019.
What’s in today’s article:
- What is Delimitation (About, constitutional provision, delimitation commission)
- Delimitation in the UT of J&K (Background, the commission, changes in J&K, opposition)
What is Delimitation?
- About delimitation:
- Delimitation is the act of redrawing boundaries of an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat to represent changes in population over time.
- The goal is to redraw boundaries (based on the most recent Census data) in such a way that the population of all seats is as uniform as possible throughout the state.
- Aside from changing the limits of a constituency, the process may result in change in the number of seats in a state.
- Constitutional provisions:
- Article 82: After each census, the distribution of seats in the Lok Sabha to the States and the partition of each State into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority and in such manner as Parliament may by law determine.
- Delimitation Commission:
- The job of delimitation is assigned to a high-power body known as Delimitation Commission or a Boundary Commission, whose orders have the force of law and cannot be questioned before any court.
- Such a Commission is formed by an act of Parliament as provided by Article 82 of the Indian Constitution.
- The orders will take effect on a date to be determined by the President of India.
Delimitation in the UT of J&K:
- Background:
- The delimitation of Lok Sabha seats in the former state of J&K was governed by the Indian Constitution, but the delimitation of Assembly seats was governed independently by the J&K Constitution and the J&K Representation of the People Act, 1957.
- The state had 111 assembly seats - 46 in Kashmir, 37 in Jammu, 4 in Ladakh and 24 seats reserved for Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
- After the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, the state lost its special status and was divided into two UTs - J&K and Ladakh.
- The delimitation exercise was necessitated after Parliament passed the J&K Reorganisation Act.
- Since Ladakh was carved out as a separate UT, J&K was left with 107 seats. With seven additional seats, the Reorganisation Act increased the seats to 114, making the effective strength of the assembly 90, excluding the 24 seats reserved for PoK.
- The Delimitation Commission:
- It was set up in 2020 to redraw Assembly and parliamentary constituencies of J&K and headed by Justice (retired) Ranjana Prakash Desai and two other members - Sushil Chandra, Chief Election Commissioner and KK Sharma, State Election Commissioner, J&K.
- After several extensions, the panel had submitted its final recommendations recently and the delimitation order was passed on May 5.
- What changes in J&K?
- The Commission’s report takes the total number of seats in the UT to 90 (43 in the Jammu division and 47 in the Kashmir valley).
- The number of Lok Sabha constituencies will be 5. Thus, each Parliamentary constituency will have an equal number of 18 Assembly Constituencies each.
- The panel has also reserved 9 assembly seats - 6 in Jammu and three in Kashmir - for Scheduled Tribes. 7 assembly seats have been reserved for Scheduled Castes.
- The panel has also recommended the provision of at least two seats for members (with one woman) from among Kashmiri migrants in the assembly.
- Opposition by regional parties of J&K:
- The panel’s decisions have been criticised on grounds that it violated the population criterion as it is based on Census 2011.
- Until now, Kashmir’s 56% population had 55.4% of the seats and Jammu’s 43.8% of population had 44.5% of the seats.
