NC says won’t participate in delimitation exercise

After this, the Lok Sabha speaker nominated 15 MPs from these states as “associate members” of the commission, to be headed by former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai.

From the NC, party president Farooq Abdullah, Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi were the ones nominated to the panel. They will now no longer be part of it.

Referring to the announcement of the commission by the Centre, the National Conference said Friday: “This delimitation commission is a product of the J&K Re-organisation Act, 2019 which JKNC is challenging in and outside Hon’ble SC. Participating in this delimitation commission will be tantamount to accepting the events of 5th Aug 2019 which the NC is unwilling to do.”

The party also said that constitution of the erstwhile state, “the constituencies of J&K were to be delimited in 2026 with rest of the country. The constituencies in the state were last delimited in ’90s”.

Thereafter, the party added, an amendment in the constitution of J&K was unanimously passed in the former state assembly. “All the regional parties, Congress and BJP voted for this amendment to carry out delimitation with the rest of the country in 2026. Therefore the constitution of the delimitation commission is unwarranted,” the party statement read.