E-Paper
No J&K MPs in RS after Feb 15 as four members’ terms end
Between 1991 and 1996, when the state had no assembly, there were no MPs from J&K in the Upper House between April 1994 and October 1996.
The Rajya Sabha will have no representatives from Jammu and Kashmir by the middle of February, when the four Upper House member from the Union territory (UT) carved out of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 complete their stints.
Because the UT does not have an elected assembly at present, there will be no representatives in the upper chamber of Parliament until elections are held in J&K. Members of the Rajya Sabha are chosen by an electoral college of state legislators with a system of proportional representation through a single transferable vote.
The election itself will be held after the delimitation exercise to redraw the boundaries of the electoral constituencies is completed. According to people aware of the details, the delimitation process is expected to be completed by March.
Also read: House stalled as Opposition parties demands farm debate
In August 2019, the Centre pushed through constitutional changes divesting the erstwhile state of its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcating it into two UTs -- J&K and Ladakh.
Two MPs from the People’s Democratic Party, Nazir Ahmed Laway and Mir Mohammed Fayaz, will see their terms end on February 10 and 15 respectively. Congress leader and leader of the opposition in the House Ghulam Nabi Azad will see his end on February 15 and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Shamsher Singh Manhas, on February 10. While Azad has been a member of the Upper House for five terms since 1996, Laway, Mir and Manhas are first time MPs.
To be sure, this is not the first time that the Upper House will be without any representative from J&K. Between 1991 and 1996, when the state had no assembly, there were no MPs from J&K in the Upper House for the duration between April 1994 and October 1996.
Former CM and PDP leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was then with the Congress, was a member of the Upper House from 1986 to 1992; his party colleagues Rajendra Prasad Jain and Dharam Pal retired in 1994. Ghulam Rasool Mattoo, an independent, was a member of the House from 1988 to 1994 Shabir Ahmad Salaria of the National Conference retired in 1992.
After elections were held in 1996, Saifuddin Soz, Sharifuddin Shariq, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Karan Singh were elected to the Upper House.
“This has happened before when assembly elections were not held in 1991. But now the process of delimitation is underway and once that is completed we are hopeful that assembly elections will be held and the due processes will be followed,” Laway said.
Constitutional expert and former Lok Sabha secretary general secretary PDT Achary said: “Ideally, such a situation should not have arisen, but because of the circumstances, the House will go without representation from the UT. Since the process of delimitation and holding polls to elect a new assembly has not been carried out, this is fait accompli,” he said.
After the state lost its special status, the UT of J&K was to have its own elected assembly; Ladakh was designated as a UT without an assembly. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019Act also called for the setting up of a delimitation commission to redraw the boundaries of the electoral constituencies of J&K.
The delimitation commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Desai was notified in March 2020 and was given a year until March 2021 to draw up the new constituencies.
The last delimitation exercise was carried out in J&K in 1995. In 2002, the J&K assembly passed a law putting a freeze on fresh delimitation of seats until 2026.
“Work to complete the process of delimitation is underway. There were some delays because of the corona pandemic, but work has resumed and the process is expected to be complete by March 2021,” said an official aware of the details, who requested anonymity.
According to the Act, the number of seats in the assembly will increase from 107 to 114. The 24 seats that are reserved in the J&K Assembly for areas under Pakistan’s occupation will remain untouched and due reservation will be given to representatives from the schedule castes and schedule tribes.
There is also speculation that more seats are likely to be added to the Jammu division.
In his Independence Day address last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir after the delimitation process is completed.
“The delimitation exercise is going on in Jammu and Kashmir under the chairmanship of a retired Supreme Court judge. As soon as the delimitation process is over, there will be elections in the future so that the Union Territory has its own government, which will undertake development work with renewed vigour,” Modi said.
In the Lok Sabha, there are five representatives from Jammu and Kashmir, which includes two BJP MPs from Jammu, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma; and three MPs from Kashmir, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi. Ladakh, which was a part of the erstwhile state and is now a separate Union Territory, is represented by BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgayal.
Ends
