Former Rajya Sabha member and Congress veteran Karan Singh said on Wednesday that the recent spike in violence in Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in the death of security personnel as well as civilians, underscores the importance of restarting the political process at the earliest.
In a statement, Dr. Singh urged the Delimitation Commission to fix a timeline and not prolong the process of delimitation that involves redrawing the boundaries of constituencies.
“While the L.G. [Lieutenant Governor] and the U.T. [Union Territory] Administration are doing their best, this cannot be a substitute for a freely elected legislature and a full-fledged popular government,” he said.
Free and fair elections
“The delimitation process should not be unduly prolonged, and I would request the Commission to fix its own time schedule for completing the exercise. Once that is done and Statehood is restored to Jammu & Kashmir, the process of free and fair elections can begin resulting, hopefully, in a stable government within the next few months. This seems to me to be the only logical and practical way of proceeding,” he added.
