Why J&K voter registration has sparked ‘outsider’ fears in Kashmir

Earlier this year, in August, the chief electoral officer of Jammu & Kashmir announced the registration of new voters. He said, “all those ordinarily residing in J&K and having achieved the age of 18 as on October 1 will be included in the list”.The announcement set off a furore in Jammu and Kashmir.Political parties in Kashmir questioned the estimates of new voters shared by the Election Commission of India, and accused the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of trying to import voters to tilt elections in its favour.The Election Commission of India (ECI) has said it is a routine exercise, especially in view of the upcoming Assembly polls in J&K, which are yet to be announced.The Election Commission has also pointed out that a recent delimitation exercise of Assembly seats in the Union Territory prompted the voter registration exercise.So why, you may wonder, is the registration of voters in Jammu & Kashmir leading to such controversy?Bharti Jain answers this question, and explains what the delimitation exercise means for J&K.Bharti is a senior editor with The Times of India and has been writing on internal security and strategy for years now. She covers the Union home ministry, security agencies, and the Election Commission of India.Bharti explains how before the abrogation of Article 370, summary electoral rolls for Assembly polls were revised annually in J&K on the basis of the Jammu and Kashmir Representation of the People Act 1957. As per this Act, a person could only register for the electoral roll if he or she was a “permanent resident of the state”.This changed after the abrogation. Now, much like the rest of the country, anyone residing for more than six months in the UT is eligible to vote, as long as the person thereafter gives up his or her voter registration in any other part of the country s/he was registered earlier.The change in voter numbers comes in the wake of the delimitation exercise carried out in J&K.The J&K Delimitation Commission earlier this year carved out seven new Assembly constituencies in the UT, six going to Jammu division and one to Kashmir, under the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act adopted in 2019. Jammu now has 43 seats against 47 in Kashmir.The Delimitation Commission has re-drawn many constituencies and fresh electoral rolls are essential to prepare the ground for any announcement of elections in J&K, where the last Assembly elections took place in 2014.In a latest move, the ECI has decided that it will also include any person who has attained the age of 18 years on or before October 1, 2022 in the fresh electoral rolls.Audio production: Basant Singhal