Three factors will have a significant impact on the composition of the future legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir. These are the J&K Re-organisation Act of 2019, the Delimitation Commission Report of 2022 and the J&K Re-organisation (Amendment Act) of 2023. To this could be added the Schedule Tribe status accorded to Paharis.
As Jammu and Kashmir braces for assembly polls after 10 years, both its political landscape and its electoral map have undergone reconfiguration of epic proportions which will have a significant bearing on the electoral outcomes.
The new political arithmetic may become clearer once the possible alliances are shaped and the dust settles over the usual ‘ucchal-kood’ of political beings from one camp to another. This may spring up surprises as the momentum of the exercise has already picked up much steam, just within days of the poll announcement.
As of now, the above-mentioned legal changes with a bearing on the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir will undeniably influence the final outcome.
Also read: J&K to Finally Have Legislative Assembly Polls After a Decade – on Sept 18 and 25, and Oct 1
J&K Re-organisation Act 2019
The J&K Reorganisation Act provides for the reorganisation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (with legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature).
The 2019 Act amended the Second Schedule of the 1950 Act to specify the total number of seats in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly to be increased from 107 to 114.
The total number of seats in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly, since the 1988 amendment in the J&K Constitution, was 111. This included 24 seats reserved for Pakistan Administered Kashmir (including Gilgit Baltistan) and four seats from Ladakh. Effectively, the assembly had 87 elected members and two nominated women.
Voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Ganeshpora, a village in Anantnag district. Photo: Umar Farooq
By eliminating the legislative seats of Ladakh, reduced that tally to 107 (83+24). This meant that effectively, any prospective assembly would have 90 elected members with no representation from Ladakh.
Before the J&K Delimitation Commission was created in March 2020, its task of increasing the total number of seats in the re-shaped Jammu and Kashmir by seven was already pre-determined by the J&K Re-organisation Act.
- Jammu got an additional six seats, Kashmir got one
- 5 nominated members may have voting rights
- Creation of more Hindu majority constituencies
- 9 ST seats including five in Rajouri
- With ST status extended to Paharis, reserved category will lose relevance in Pir Panjal
Delimitation Commission Report 2022
In its report in 2022, the Delimitation Commission redistricted the boundaries for five parliamentary constituencies and 90 assembly segments. In the preliminary stages, the panel had already announced that of the increased share of constituencies, the Jammu region got six new seats and the Kashmir Valley was given one.
The decision to increase a certain number of seats and divide it unevenly between the two regions of Kashmir preceded the basic groundwork of the delimitation process which sets certain criteria – foremost being population variations – to arrive at its conclusion.
However, the Commission was guided more by the criteria of area. Jammu province has a population of 53,50,811 (2011 census) and comprises 26,293 square kilometres of J&K. Kashmir province has a population of 68,88,475 and comprises 15,948 square kilometres.
So, even as Jammu’s population share is 43.6% as compared to Kashmir’s 56.3%, the Commission decided to increase Jammu’s seat share from 37 to 43 and Kashmir’s from 46 to 47. The guiding principle, while skirting the cardinal principle of population, was that Jammu occupied 62% geographical area of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmir had only 38%.
The Commission also recommended seven seats for Scheduled Castes, a practice, which was seen as the continuation of the previous system. It also reserved nine seats for the Scheduled Tribes.
Also read: J&K: In 5 Years Without Elected Govt, the ‘Crown of India’ Has Become a Khap Panchayat
J&K Reorganisation (Amendment) Act, 2023
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Act, 2023 endorsed these recommendations made by the Delimitation Commission and added that the Lieutenant Governor (LG) may nominate up to two members from the Kashmiri migrant community to the Legislative Assembly. One of the nominated members must be a woman.
It also empowered the LG to nominate to the Legislative Assembly one member representing displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
These three nominated seats are in addition to the nomination of two women legislators already in practice.
The effective strength of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly would be 95, with five additional nominated members, who may be granted voting rights. Earlier, the nominated members had no voting rights in the legislative assembly.
Arithmetic of constituencies
Together these three laws entail significant changes to the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir, which are likely to serve the interests of the BJP.
First is the sheer bulk of numbers that the BJP hopes to exploit in the Hindu-majority Jammu region with an addition of six seats.
Additionally, the nominated members could enrich the BJP in the game of numbers. If granted voting rights, the five members nominated by the LG are likely to bail out the party if it falls short of numbers.
Of the six assembly seats redistributed in Jammu province, only one is in Muslim majority Chenab Valley. Kishtwar, the largest district in Jammu and Kashmir at 7,737 sq km, about a fifth of the entire union territory, is sparsely populated with 231,037 people and many areas without roads. It has been given one more seat, apart from its existing two.
Representational image: Army personnel in Kashmir. Photo: Flickr CC BY 2.0 (ATTRIBUTION 2.0 GENERIC)
While releasing the first delimitation draft in December 2021 which listed the increase of six seats in Jammu province, the Commission explained that among other considerations, border areas had been included in view of their “inhospitable conditions”.
Both Samba and Kathua, now given additional seats, lie on the International Border. However, this logic has not been applied in the districts of Rajouri (62.7% Muslim) and Poonch (90.4% Muslim), which lie along the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan and endure more shelling and firing from across the border than Samba and Kathua.
More Hindu majority constituencies
Secondly, the exercise of redistricting of the constituencies has created more Hindu majority constituencies in the Muslim majority Pir Panjal and Chenab Valley of Jammu region, an abject lack of consideration of geographical, cultural congruity, and convenience in some cases.
For instance, in Jammu’s Udhampur district, within which are contained three assembly constituencies, the commission has proposed another constituency in such a way that some hilly and inaccessible areas, instead of being retained in one constituency, have been divided and appended to two or more constituencies.
In the Chenani assembly constituency, several villages and panchayats (Dudu, Jakher, Sira, Pattangarh, Barmeen, and Satyalta) have been transferred to the Ramnagar assembly constituency, even though they are not geographically connected. These villages are surrounded by Chenani on all sides and they have large schedule-caste populations: Dudu, 48.09%, and Satyalta, 21.53%.
J&K previously reserved assembly seats for scheduled-caste candidates by rotation: Chenani had completed its 25 years and the reserved seat was likely to be shifted to Ramnagar, which is what the delimitation report also proposes, but only after adding panchayats and villages dominated by scheduled castes, irrespective of geographical congruity and ease of access.
Similarly, Jakhani village, inhabited by 334 people, 92.8% of them scheduled tribes, lies on the outskirts of Udhampur town. Instead of retaining it in Udhampur constituency, it has been electorally joined with Chenani, thus removing from Udhampur constituency voters, who traditionally do not vote for BJP.
The reckless redrawing of such boundaries can suit the BJP.
There are other indicators of how the rejig could consolidate Hindu votes and help the BJP make inroads in areas where the party has few voters.
One example is the district of Rajouri, which until 2014, contained four assembly constituencies: Nowshera, Kalakote, Rajouri, and Darhal. The delimitation proposal carved out a new constituency, Thanamandi.
Nowshera remains a Hindu majority constituency after the redistricting. The amalgamation of Hindu voters is evident in the other two general assembly constituencies:
In the Kalakote constituency, 51% of the population is Muslim, with scheduled tribes comprising eight in 10 of all Muslim Panchayats. Sunderbani tehsil, which is 86% Hindu, has been severed from Nowshera and attached to Kalakote, thus ensuring a 64% Hindu majority.
Rajouri constituency, comprising primarily of Rajouri tehsil, is 70% Muslim and 28% Hindu. Rajouri town is 57% Hindu, with the Muslim population concentrated in four Muslim-majority patwar halqas or administrative units in a tehsil administered by a patwari or revenue officer: Doongi, Fatehpur, Sohna, and Bagla, with Muslim scheduled tribe populations of 48.99%, 55.72%, 91.54%, and 57.99%. With these four areas now removed from Rajouri to the Thanamadi assembly constituency, Hindus have a greater influence than before on electoral fortunes.
In Rajouri, Chowdhary Talib Hussain, who had earlier represented the seat as National Conference or Congress member, contested on the BJP ticket and gave a tough fight to the PDP candidate, who won by a margin of about 15,000 votes. In Kalakote, BJP’s Abdul Gani Kohli won by a margin of 6,000 votes, beating his nearest rival, Rachpal Singh of the National Conference. Ravindar Raina of the BJP won the Nowshera seat by a margin of less than 10,000 votes.
The BJP hopes to retain these three seats by benefitting from the re-jigged boundaries.
In the 2024 parliamentary elections, despite a tough fight from the Congress, the BJP candidate Jugal Kishore obtained 38848 votes in this segment as against 23676 obtained by Raman Bhalla of the Congress, recording a lead of about 15,000 votes.
Kalakote-Sunderbani was severed from the rest of the Pir Panjal region and retained in the Jammu parliamentary constituency whereas the rest of the region was appended with Anantnag constituency, as per the delimitation recommendations.
However, despite the gerrymandering of boundaries, BJP’s proxy party – Apni Party- trailed behind in both the Nowshera and Rajouri segments by about 3,000 and 15,000 votes respectively. Would the fate be any different if the BJP contests the assembly polls on its own will depend on many factors beyond the redistricting of boundaries?
The ST factor in Pir Panjal
A third important factor in the elections – particularly in the Pir Panjal belt – is the Schedule Tribe (ST) category seats.
As per the delimitation commission recommendations, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Act, 2023 confirmed nine ST constituencies, five of them located in Rajouri-Poonch twin border districts, for J&K’s assembly elections.
The nine ST constituencies include Rajouri, Darhal, Thanamandi (Rajouri), Surankote, Mendhar (Poonch), Mahore (Reasi), Kokernag (Anantnag), Kangan (Ganderbal) and Gurez (Bandipora).
With five out of eight of the reserved ST seats in Rajouri-Poonch, 60 percent of the Pir Panjal belt was reserved into an exclusive reserved electoral zone. While the ST categorization may play a role in the four other ST constituencies, it has now been blunted by granting the Paharis ST status.
In February 2024, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order Amendment Bill, 2023 extending the ST status to Paharis, Gadda Brahman, the Paddari Tribe, and the Koli communities.
When the Paharis were accorded tribal status, this not only made the reserved seats in Rajouri-Poonch districts irrelevant, but it also altered the region’s political dynamics that may create further complexities in vulnerabilities in these twin districts, which have a 70-year history of being in the middle of violence, war and border skirmishes between India and Pakistan.
Characterised by neglect and backwardness, Rajouri and Poonch are also divided on lines of religion, caste, ethnicity, and language.
In both Rajouri and Poonch, 36% of the population is from traditionally pastoral Muslim tribes of Gujjars and Bakerwals, who speak Gojri and have a distinct culture. The rest of the population, both Muslim and Hindu, speak Pahari, a dialect of Punjabi.
In Poonch district, 10% of the population is Hindu and Sikh, mostly concentrated in the town of Poonch and others like it, whereas the rural areas are populated by Muslims, primarily scheduled tribes and Paharis.
Rajouri has 34.5% Hindus and 62.7% Muslims. Most Hindus are concentrated in Rajouri town and the rural areas are mostly dominated by the Muslims. There is also a heavy concentration of Hindus in Nowshera, Kalakote, and Sunderbani.
Electoral politics and the political narrative in Rajouri and Poonch are mostly determined by the Gujjar-Pahari divide, with the religious divisions playing a secondary role. With the ST status extended to Paharis, both the ethnic and religious divides are likely to be further deepened and contests are likely to be aggressive and bitter. The religion card, with a shoring up of caste factor, in the region will play a bigger role than it ever has in this belt. Much will also depend on how the different political parties will field candidates and play their cards.
Will other factors be dominant?
From the J&K Re-organisation Act to future amendments, the changes in the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir are designed to suit the BJP electorally. However, there will be many other factors at play, that will blunt these advantages including the post-2019 policies and actions that have led to increased public resentment and a sense of betrayal even in Jammu region – the BJP’s stronghold.
The permutations and combinations in the shapes of alliances and tacit understandings between political players and the ticket distributions by the different organisations will have a definite bearing on the final outcomes. That is something to be watched.
This article first appeared in the Kashmir Times.
