Delimitation Commission made ‘grave mistake’ in crafting Anantnag-Rajouri PC: Azad

Anantnag, Apr 21: Chairman Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday said the “application of mind is missing” in the crafting of the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency.
He said the Delimitation Commission made a “grave mistake” one that should not have occurred. This mistake involves the division of the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency, with one side on either side of the province.
Azad questioned the practicality of a constituency that remains inaccessible for six months. “Where will the people of Rajouri and Poonch find their Member of Parliament during these six months, and vice versa?” he asked.
The former chief minister said, “If it had been seen during delimitation, physically, where Rajouri, Poonch and Anantnag are located and had gone through the roads, the Delimitation Commission would have known that these areas are divided by mountains that have existed for thousands of years. If they needed to increase seats, they should have made three seats. No Kashmiri would have objected, as it would have made no difference among the 550 seats.”
They could have increased it to three seats on each side, but allocating 2.5 seats on each side has created a significant distance for a single constituency, he said.
“Campaigning and travelling to either side becomes difficult,” he said. “Be it rains or the six-month snow, none can travel. What sort of constituency is this? Now one has to procure 1000 or 2000 for a helicopter for everyone to travel back and forth. But, there hasn’t been an ‘application of mind’. I say to the Election Commission and the delimitation Commission, with respect, they should have done physical verification.”
The DPAP chief further said that there is a huge distance between the two provinces and crafting one constituency can’t be accurately done on Google. “These decisions can’t be made solely through Google. They require physical verification,” he said.