SRINAGAR — The final electoral rolls for J&K are likely to be published on Friday in which seven lakh new voters have been included, election commission sources said.
The final electoral rolls to be made public include seven lakh new voters and the total number of voters will now go up to 83 lakhs in J&K, sources said.
“Nearly five-month long exercise for revision of electoral rolls undertaken after the completion of Delimitation Commission report in Jammu and Kashmir which allotted 47 Assembly seats to Kashmir division and 43 to Jammu region has been completed. The final electoral rolls will be published today,” sources said.
For revising the electoral rolls in the UT, all 20 deputy commissioners were designated as the District Electoral Officers (DEO).
“Nearly 13,000 employees were involved in the exercise. The Election Commission had ordered Special Summary Revision for J&K on July 1, 2022,” sources added.
Jammu and Kashmir had 76 lakh voters when the last summary revision was undertaken in 2018.
“An increase of 7 lakh voters in the last three years is normal. During earlier revisions also there used to be an average increase of two lakh voters every year. Therefore, an increase of seven lakh voters is not significant and the fear psychosis created by certain political parties that outsiders will get voting rights in Jammu and Kashmir has turned out to be wrong,” sources said.
Even though the revised electoral rolls are being published, there is no chance of the Assembly elections being held in J&K before March 2023.
Before the bifurcation of the state into two UTs in August 2019, the J&K Assembly had 87 members — four for Ladakh, 46 for the Valley and 37 for the Jammu division.
Now as per the recommendations of the delimitation commission, the J&K Assembly will have 114 seats out of which 90 will be elected, 47 from the Valley, 43 for the Jammu region.
24 seats have been reserved for Pakistan occupied parts of J&K (PoJK).
The delimitation commission has also recommended two reserved seats with voting rights for the Kashmiri migrants which will be nominated.
The commission has also recommended reservations in the Assembly for the PoJK refugees living in Jammu division. — IANS
