The election bugle has been sounded in Jammu and Kashmir. The Election Commission has announced the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly elections after 10 years. But do you know that Jammu and Kashmir is a state where voting never takes place on 20 percent of the seats? Yes, today we will tell you why elections are not held on 20 percent of the seats in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir
Assembly elections have been announced in Jammu and Kashmir. Elections will be held here in three phases. According to the information, elections will be held from 18 September to 01 October, i.e. voting will be done in just 14 days. Let us tell you that there are a total of 114 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir. But after the delimitation of assembly seats in the state, elections will be held only on 90 seats. The remaining 24 seats are for POJK i.e. Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Apart from this, out of the remaining 90 seats, 43 seats are in Jammu division and 47 seats are in Kashmir division. This time voting will be held on these 90 seats. At the same time, 9 seats of these two divisions are reserved for ST and 7 seats for SC.
Seats increased after delimitation
Let us tell you that in the year 2019, when Article 370 was repealed through the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019. After that the delimitation process was started to re-determine the boundaries of the electoral seats in the state. At the same time, a Delimitation Commission was set up in March 2020, whose final report was released in May 2022. This report increased the number of assembly seats from 107 to 114, in which 06 seats were included in Jammu and 01 seat in Kashmir.
24 seats for PoJK
Apart from this, out of 114 seats, 24 seats are reserved for the areas of Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, which means that elections cannot be contested on them. Therefore, the effective number of seats available for election right now is 90. There are 43 seats in Jammu division and 47 in Kashmir division. Now, after the special status of the state is abolished, assembly elections are going to be held here for the first time.
The last assembly elections were held in 2014
Assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014. The elections were held between November and December, in which voting took place on 87 seats. In this, PDP got 28 seats, BJP got 24 seats, National Conference got 15 seats, Congress got 12 seats and others got 7 seats. PDP got 23 percent votes, BJP also got 23 percent votes, National Conference got 21 percent votes and Congress got 18 percent votes.