Srinagar: In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed serious concern over the proposed delimitation, warning that the process must not be manipulated to benefit the BJP, but should reflect the interests of the general electorate.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, speaking to reporters in Srinagar, Omar Abdullah, referring to the delimitation done in 2020 in IIOJK, said that the delimitation must not favour the BJP and its allies. \u201cThey say delimitation will be beneficial. But the previous exercise was carried out to favour the BJP and its allies (in occupied Jammu and Kashmir). If this bill is meant to benefit a party rather than a voter, it must be closely examined,\u201d he said, stressing that any new delimitation must be impartial.<\/p>\n
He added said that the INDIA bloc is scheduled to meet in New Delhi at the residence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge to deliberated on the proposed bills, and he will fly to Delhi to attend the meeting.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, National Conference spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said the earlier delimitation was forced on people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, where seats were gerrymandered to favour one particular party and their allies, and seat division was unfair. \u201cIt (delimitation of 2020) was a fraud committed on Kashmir, which had more population than the Jammu region, but the latter was given six seats compared to only one for the Valley.\u201d He expressed hope that any new commission would correct these anomalies and ensure fairness.<\/p>\n
Reportedly, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah is set to introduce the Delimitation Bill, 2026, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, in Parliament on April 16. The proposed legislation seeks to expand parliamentary seats across India and empower the Delimitation Commission in IIOJK to increase assembly seats beyond the current 114, raise parliamentary representation from five to potentially seven seats, and expand nominated members in the assembly from five to seven, including provisions for three women, three Pandits, and one AJK refugee.<\/p>\n
Following the abrogation of Article 370, the BJP-led Indian government constituted the Delimitation Commission in March 2020 under the IIOJK Reorganisation Act, 2019. The exercise significantly altered electoral boundaries, allocating six additional assembly seats to Hindu-dominated Jammu region while granting only one to the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, and restructuring constituencies to bring the total to 90 seats, including reserved quotas for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.<\/p>\n
At the time, political observers and Kashmir watchers widely argued that the delimitation framework had been deliberately engineered to skew the electoral balance in favour of the BJP in IIOJK, raising serious concerns about fairness, representation, and the dilution of the Valley\u2019s political voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar: In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed serious concern over the proposed delimitation, warning that the process must not be manipulated to benefit the BJP, but should reflect the interests of the general electorate. According to Kashmir Media Service, speaking to reporters in Srinagar, Omar Abdullah, referring …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":190244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-occupied-jammu-and-kashmir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/12\/omar-abdullah-news-0809_d.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198460,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198459\/revisions\/198460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}