New Delhi: India has now one State less and two Union Territories more as the State of Jammu and Kashmir ceased to exist at midnight Wednesday and was converted into two union territories under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, 86 days after Parliament abrogated its special status under Article 370.
The Presidential proclamation of August 9 giving assent to the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories comes into effect.
The total number of states in the country will now be 28, while the total UTs will go up to nine.
The UT of Jammu and Kashmir will have a legislature like Puducherry while Ladakh will be a UT without legislature like Chandigarh. Both UTs will be headed by lieutenant governors (LG), under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
The UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh will be headed by lieutenant governors G C Murmu and R K Mathur, respectively.