All major J&K parties to meet Delimitation Panel

In a major breakthrough for the Centre, all major political parties in Jammu and Kashmir barring for PDP have agreed to meet the Delimitation Commission on Tuesday. This comes days after PM Modi chaired a meeting of 14 leading politicians of J&K in which it was emphasised that Assembly elections will be held after the Delimitation process is complete.

Barring the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all other major political parties including the National Conference (NC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the CPI(M) and the National Panthers Party (NPP) are indecisive about meeting the commission’s members. Both the mainstream political majors, as also other smaller constituents of the Farooq-led Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), have significantly compromised their obduracy and begun preparations for representations before Justice (retired) Ranjana Prakash Desai’s panel, both in Kashmir and Jammu, next week. For months, the NC and the PDP had declined to associate with the Delimitation Commission until restoration of J&K’s Statehood and the special Constitutional status withdrawn in August 2019.

The Delimitation Commission will arrive in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday to meet political parties, district officials and other stakeholders and gather “first-hand information” on the ongoing process of redrawing the boundaries there. The members will begin the four-day visit from Pahalgam, where they will meet officials of the four districts of South Kashmir — Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian.