Opposition stages walkout over Amit Shah’s remark on Nehru
The Lok Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, on Wednesday. After the passage of the bill, members of the Opposition staged a walkout from the House, reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments about former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
In the course of the debate, Shah asserted, “Jammu and Kashmir has suffered due to two blunders committed by Prime Minister Nehru – first, by announcing a ceasefire and then taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations… Had Jawaharlal Nehru taken the right steps, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would have been part of India now. It was a historic blunder.”
The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, brings modifications to the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, which governs reservations in jobs and admissions to professional institutions for members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and socially and educationally backward classes. Key features of this amendment include the replacement of the phrase ‘weak and underprivileged classes’ with ‘other backward classes,’ as declared by the Union Territory, in the original definition of weak and underprivileged classes as explained by Live Law.
In contrast, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, introduces amendments to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which facilitated the reorganisation of the erstwhile state into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. This bill proposes an increase in the total number of seats in the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly from 83 to 90, with seven reserved for scheduled caste members and nine for legislators from scheduled tribes.
Additional features include granting the lieutenant governor the authority to nominate up to two members from the Kashmiri migrant community to the legislative assembly, with one nominee being a woman. Furthermore, one member representing displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir may also be nominated.