JAMMU: The Congress is anti-Kashmiri Pandits (KPs), anti-POJK people and also anti-women as these are the groups of people that will be nominated as MLAs by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha in the coming days, BJP spokesperson Arun Gupta has said. The Congress had challenged the LG’s powers to nominate five MLAs in the Supreme Court with the motive to deny these groups any representation in the Legislative Assembly. However, the apex court dismissed the petition on Monday thereby burying the party’s plans to play mischief in this regard, he pointed out.
He expressed gratitude to the Supreme Court for refusing to entertain the Congress petition to stop LG Sinha from nominating five MLAs in the near future. In the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, a provision has been made to give nominations to Kashmiri Pandits (one man, one woman) and one person from the community of Pakistan Occupied Jammu Kashmir (POJK) refugees, he said. The powers to nominate MLAs were given to the LG as it was almost impossible for members of these communities to get elected, Mr Gupta said.
In the just concluded assembly elections, no Kashmiri Pandit could win from any of the 90 assembly constituencies, Mr Gupta recalled. Over a dozen KPs had contested from various assembly segments in the Kashmir valley but all of them lost. This clearly proved that it was not possible for them to get elected in any contest for assembly seats. Thus nomination by LG is the only way they can get representation in the legislature, Mr Gupta said.
The power to nominate two KPs to the Legislative Assembly was given to the LG to address such a scenario. The Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had anticipated this possibility five years ago by observing past trends, he said. As such, the LG will nominate two KPs, one man and one woman, to the assembly soon, he added. After the 2014 assembly elections, the BJP had made two of its leaders MLCs as Legislative Council existed, he recalled.
In the Union Territory (UT) of J&K, no Legislative Council is there and as such nominations by the LG is the only way out to give legislative representation to KPs. The people from POJK also faced challenges in the electoral arena and nomination will give them legislative representation, Mr Gupta said.
Incidentally, the powers given to LG Sinha to nominate five MLAs are based on a law that was passed by the Congress in 1963, Mr Gupta said. At that time, the creation of a legislature for a Union Territory (UT) was the issue being debated and the UT was Puducherry (called Pondicherry ruled by France once). Initially, a wholly nominated legislature was proposed by then Union Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Mr Gupta said.
After some parliamentarians objected to a wholly nominated legislature, a mixed Legislative Assembly composed of elected and nominated MLAs was proposed. Under Article 239A, a legislature comprising of 30 elected and three nominated MLAs was then created for Puducherry. Even today, the Puducherry legislature has the same composition and the number of nominated MLAs is 10% of their elected counterparts.
The petition filed by the Congress was mainly targeted at Sections 15, 15A and 15B of the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, from which the LG derives these powers to nominate MLAs, Mr Gupta pointed out. The petition was apparently ill-timed as well as mala fide and as such not entertained by the apex court which gave marching orders to the petitioner, he concluded.
