EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 9: The workers of Dogra Front (DF) and Shiv Sena (SS) under the leadership of their president Ashok Gupta took out a rally in Jammu city demanding reservation of Legislative Assembly (LA) seats for the PoJK refugees and Kashmiri Pandits in the upcoming assembly elections.
While addressing the protesters, Ashok Gupta said that 2011 Census should be the basis of delimitation.
“The 2011 Census was fudged. Earlier, constituencies were identified to please two families. Our suggestion is that the population should not be the sole criteria. The terrain, its vastness, accessibility and scattered population should be taken into consideration. The Chenab Valley should be seen as per the watershed of the river Chenab and accordingly new constituencies should be identified.
Gupta said that we demand political reservation for PoJK refugees by unfreezing the eight Assembly seats, three seats for Kashmiri Pandits, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other neglected people.
Delimitation should be as per the constitutional framework based on the basic tenets of delimitation, population, geography, topography, area, physical features, contiguity, convenience of administrative units and facilities of easy communication and approachability of public convenience, said Gupta.
The Scheduled Castes communities and the Scheduled Tribes must get adequate judicious representation. Reservation should be based on settled criteria, which should be followed in a transparent manner, he added.
The party people who were present at the time of protest included Abhishek, Birbal, Sushil, Prem, Kalu, Nirmal, Lovely and several others.
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