JAMMU, Mar : Nearly 700 representations have been filed before the Delimitation Commission by political parties, organizations and individuals during last seven days of claims and objections invited by the Panel after putting the report in public domain on March 14. On last day of filing objections today, major political parties submitted their detailed representations to the Commission.
While National Conference and BJP which had representation in the Commission having three and two Associate Members respectively in their capacity as Lok Sabha MPs from Jammu and Kashmir, had already submitted objections/suggestions to the draft report shared with them, some of their leaders filed objections at individual level. However, other major political parties including Congress, BSP, NPP etc submitted their claims to the Panel today.
The Commission will settle claims and objections either by accepting or rejecting the suggestions. The claims which are accepted by the Panel will reflect in final report which it will be submitting on or before May 6, the extended timeline for finalizing recommendations.
In their exhaustive document sent to the Commission, the Congress has demanded renaming of Jammu East Assembly seat as Temple City, Bahu as Bawe Wali Mata constituency and Thanna Mandi as Shahdara Sharief. It said the people were expecting one additional Lok Sabha seat but the Panel has committed a mistake by making a Lok Sabha constituency by dividing two divisions (Anantnag-Poonch Parliamentary seat). The Party urged the Commission to tour every district during their two-day visit to J&K on March 28 and 29.
Voicing concern over gap in voters in Assembly constituencies, the Congress pointed out that some seats are based on 30,000 and 50,000 votes while others have close to 2 lakh votes. It cited the names of Gurez which was based on 30,000 votes, Paddar which has 51,000 electorates, Dooru which comprised 1.92 lakh voters and Surankote having 1.82 lakh votes.
