In Kashmir, areas with a Hindu majority obtain more seats.

According to Reuters, a new list of redesigned parliamentary seats for Indian-occupied Kashmir was released on Thursday, giving Hindu communities in the Muslim-majority territory more representation and clearing the way for new elections.

In an effort to tighten its hold over the region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government split the Indian-controlled territory into two federal territories in 2019.

Originally, the occupied region included the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley, the Hindu-dominated Jammu region, and the distant Buddhist enclave of Ladakh.

A delimitation commission, according to the administration, has finalized 90 assembly constituencies for controlled Kashmir, excluding Ladakh, with 43 seats for Jammu and 47 seats for Kashmir. Previously, Jammu had 37 seats and Kashmir had 46.

The committee, whose report was rejected by the Peoples Democratic Party of J&K, claimed it was impossible to accept competing claims from multiple parties, noting the region’s “unique geo-cultural landscape” in a statement.

In January, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah stated that elections in J&K would be held shortly after the delimitation process was completed. He also promised to restore its independence whenever its “status returned to normal.”

The Jammu Kashmir National Conference, which has controlled the region, said it was looking into the ramifications of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision (BJP).

“No amount of gerrymandering can affect the ground fact, which is that voters will punish the BJP and its proxies for what they have done whenever elections are held.”

The Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement issued on Thursday that it had handed over a demarche to the Indian Charge d’Affaires, conveying the Pakistani government’s categorical rejection of the report of the so-called ‘Delimitation Commission,’ which was aimed at disenfranchising and disempowering the Muslim majority population of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

The FO urged India to refrain from making any illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, to end its oppression in the IIOJK as soon as possible, and to allow the Kashmiri people to decide their own future through a free and fair plebiscite under UN auspices, as stipulated in relevant UN Security Council resolutions.