JKPCC Working President Raman Bhalla said that the draft report lacks political, social and administrative reasons to justify the recommendations.

JAMMU — The J&K Congress has criticized the BJP led government for ‘playing with the sentiments of people of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory’ and rejected the draft proposals of the Delimitation Commission.

Speaking at a Congress rally at Paloura in Jammu on Tuesday, JKPCC Working President Raman Bhalla said that the draft report lacks political, social and administrative reasons to justify the recommendations.

He said earlier it was claimed that the delimitation exercise was being undertaken to make Assembly seats contiguous with the district. “But the draft report is showing a different picture altogether,” he said.

He said the proposed report is visibly disproportionate and encourages doubts of favouritism towards a specific political party.

“The report defeats the very idea of a secular India and compromises on the rules guiding the process involved in territorial delimitations of Assembly constituencies as mandated by the Election Commission of India and the constitution. The local population has deep resentment over the BJP’s arbitrary laws, which routinely gives them an impression of disempowerment and adds further to the feeling of alienation,” the former minister said.

He added that his party is resolute in its demand that these decisions fall specifically under the domain of an elected government while the current administration must focus on safeguarding the rights of the people, curbing spiking unemployment rates and inflation in the Union Territory.