On May 29, three members of Parliament from the National Conference walked out of the Delimitation Commission. The commission, headed by a ...
On May 29, three members of Parliament from the National Conference walked out of the Delimitation Commission. The commission, headed by a former judge, had been set up by the Centre in March to redraw Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies in the newly created territory of Jammu and Kashmir as well as the North Eastern states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
With the three National Constituency members walking out, Kashmir has no elected representative left in the commission. Two Bharatiya Janata Party members of Parliament from Jammu, however, remain on it.
The body was set up under the Delimitation Commission Act of 2002, months after the Centre revoked special status for Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and split the former state into two Union Territories on August 5. It was stripped of the state constitution. It was also stripped of protections under Article 35A, which empowered the state legislature to define “permanent residents” and reserve for them certain rights, such as the right to own land and hold government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir.
The transition from state to Union Territory is governed by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. Article 35A was replaced by domicile rules where anyone who had...
