Azhar Hussain
‘Politicians not people dismayed over redrawing of electoral constituencies’
The Delimitation Commission constituted for redrawing the Assembly Constituencies of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday submitted its second draft report that sent shock waves across the political fabric of the erstwhile state.
The political pundits and leaders alike gazed hours and days over the new report trying hard to comprehend the meticulous changes proposed in the document. While some Kashmir based political parties outrightly rejected the territorial changes of Assembly constituencies others opted to maintain a silence till the final conclusions were attained.
Pertinently with an exception of the Lok Sabha seat carved out by blending South Kashmir’s district Anantnag and Jammu province’s Rajouri district, a thumping majority of the people in Kashmir have registered no sizable resentment over the local electoral boundary changes. This implies that the claims about delimitation exercise being irrational, unscientific or biased does not hold water.
There may still exist a feeling of discontent among the people over the disproportionate addition of Assembly constituencies to the Jammu and Kashmir divisions but the second draft report has specifically given rise to massive complications for the native political leaders. Their potential vote bank has been either divided or fully merged with a neighboring constituencies.
As far as people are concerned, the redefinition of the territorial constituency boundaries has been predominantly judicious. For the first time a maximum number of such Assembly segments are now finally in sync with their corresponding revenue Tehsils. However, the previous electoral demarcations were chaotic in nature and often created huge problems for the common people. But the balance has been struck now.
For example, the rural areas of Sonwar Constituency including Dara, Fakir Gujri & Harwan have now been appositely added to Hazratbal Constituency which also happens to be its concerned revenue Tehsil. In a similar fashion Nishat, Boulevard and its peripheries have now been merged with Khanyar Constituency which has remained he corresponding Tehsil of these areas for decades.
Yet there persists an underlying anxiety and confusion for the politicians who have lost a considerable number of prospective voters due to this process. It is an explicit problem for the conventional politicians who for decades have leveraged on such dense voter pockets that usually belonged to eminent families and clans but now door to door campaign & interaction with locals on grassroots level remains the only way to register win in the upcoming elections.
The era of mediocre politics is over. The politicians have to tread new paths and convince people with their developmental agenda as the grievances and pressing demands of newly shaped constituency voters & political workers are awaiting them. The ground situation has astoundingly become uniform where a fresh candidate and a former minister stand on the same plane. However, it is the voters whose political inclination shall eventually determine the future of J&K.
