Major Opposition parties announce joint struggle against delimitation panel report on J&K

Jammu: Major Opposition parties, including the Congress, NC and PDP, on Monday announced a joint struggle against the recently released final report of the delimitation commission on Jammu and Kashmir. The announcement was made after a three-hour long meeting of the parties and several social organisations under the banner of All Parties United Morcha (APUM) here. The delimitation panel on Jammu and Kashmir, formed in March 2020, on 5 May notified its final report giving six additional Assembly seats to the Jammu region and one to the Kashmir Valley and bringing areas of Rajouri and Poonch under the Anantnag parliamentary seat. The Jammu division will now have 43 Assembly seats and the Kashmir division 47 in the 90-member house. The APUM comprising Congress, National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), CPI(M), CPI and IDP besides several social organisations like Mission Statehood and Desh Bhagat Yadgar Committee have already rejected the delimitation report as highly objectionable, biased and politically motivated. The meeting decided to jointly launch a struggle and a sustained campaign to oppose the (delimitation) report and awaken the general public, starting from a joint sit-in this week in front of the election commission (office) here, read a statement issued after the meeting. Senior Congress leader and former MLC Ravinder Sharma presided over the meeting which among others was attended by NC provincial president (Jammu) Rattan Lal Gupta, former MP Sheikh Abdul Rehman, former MLC Ved Mahajan, PDP spokesperson Virinder Singh Sonu and CPI(M) leader Kishore Kumar. The meeting reiterated its demand for early restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir before holding of assembly elections. The participants also deliberated on the report and said it was against geographical realities, norms of uniform population, compactness, contiguity, connectivity and public convenience and prepared at the behest of the ruling BJP. Criticising the final report, the leaders said the commission has totally ignored the ground realities and neglected the convenience and aspirations of the people of different areas and widened the gap of population from 37,000 to 1.90 lakh in different constituencies. The meeting also expressed concern over attempts being made to create communal polarisation and strongly condemned such actions of the communal forces encouraged by the BJP government, the statement said. It was decided to defeat the nefarious designs of such forces and maintain communal harmony, it added. Also read: _**'Highly objectionable': Opposition parties reject delimitation panel report on J&K, to hold meet on Monday**_ _**Jammu and Kashmir Congress calls delimitation panel report 'biased', 'politically motivated'**_ _**Delimitation Commission signs final order for Jammu and Kashmir**_ _**Jammu & Kashmir delimitation commission submits final plan: Understanding the exercise to redraw the electoral map**_ Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.