Pahalgam, South Kashmir: The Delimitation Commission on Wednesday met leaders of different political parties, officials, including Deputy Commissioners (DC) in this famed health resort.
The three member commission comprises Justice (Retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra and Deputy Election Commissioner (Dy EC) Chandra Bhushan arrived here on a four-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. The commission has been mandated to interact with leaders of political parties, officials and others to gather first-hand information about the conduct of the delimitation exercise to carve out new constituencies in the union territory. The commission will also for the first time carve out constituencies for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in Jammu and Kashmir.
Leaders of different political parties besides those belonging to SC and ST have arrived at Pahalgam, where unprecedented security arrangements have been made.
The DCs of south Kashmir districts—Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama are also scheduled to meet the delegation.
The first day was very busy for the commission when the members met about 12 delegations of different political parties, including National Conference (NC), CPI(M), Congress, Apni Party (AP), BJP and others till late in the night on Tuesday.
However, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Awami National Conference (ANC) boycotted the commission, describing it unconstitutional. Immediately after PDP announced its boycott of the commission, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned the mother of PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and asked her to appear before it on July 14 in Srinagar.
Majority political parties demanded restoration of August 4,2019 position while BJP and Congress besides AP were in favour of elections after delimitation process is over and restoring statehood.
UNI
