Only 2 of 5 Jammu & Kashmir MPs attend delimitation panel’s 1st meet

New Delhi: Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference on Thursday boycotted the first meeting called by the Delimitation Commission, set up to redraw constituency boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir and four northeast states, with parliamentarians from the new union territory.

They will be offered another opportunity to bring their views to the table, highly placed sources told ET.

The commission is also set to seek an extension of its one-year term, which ends on March 6, to complete the delimitation exercise for J&K, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, the sources said.

As per Section 5 of the Delimitation Act, 2002, the commission is to ‘associate’ itself with members of Parliament and legislative assembly of the state.

J&K has only five ‘associate members’ – all parliamentarians – as the state assembly was dissolved in 2018. They are Farooq Abdullah, Mohammed Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi from NC, besides BJP’s minister of state Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma.

While associate members have no voting or signing rights in the delimitation exercise, their views including dissenting ones are taken on board by the commission and put on record in the notification of delimitation.

Thursday’s meeting was the panel’s first meeting with associate members from J&K.

All the three NC members stayed away, citing that the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 is itself sub-judice in the Supreme Court of India.

They had sent a communication to the commission on the same.

The two BJP members are learnt to have made suggestions on the need to ensure compactness and geographical contiguity of areas under a constituency, besides highlighting the benefits of ensuring that one constituency stays within a single administrative unit or district.

The Delimitation Commission will once again invite the associate members for a second-stage discussion as they formulate the delimitation plan for the union territory, so urces said. It will also schedule a visit to J&K over the next 2-3 months to expedite the process.

The commission is chaired by former Supreme Court Judge Ranjana Prakash Desai and has Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and state election commissioners on board. It is soon expected to apply for an extension of its term ending early next month, citing that it could not operate at full steam due to Covid-19 and lockdowns thereafter.