FORMER Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference Vice President, Omar Abdullah, has challenged the BJP to conduct Assembly elections alongside the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Talking to the media on Wednesday, Abdullah said the BJP didn’t want Assembly polls in the union territory as it feared losing them. His statements reflect the growing frustration among the political parties of J&K with the Election Commission’s refusal to hold polls in the near future. Omar said that in the absence of assembly elections, various individuals have been appointed to influential positions, effectively ruling the region without a democratic mandate. He questioned that while the BJP has shown enthusiasm in conducting other elections, such as panchayat polls, Urban Local Bodies elections, and even the parliamentary elections, it remained puzzling why they evaded the assembly elections.
Other parties have the same refrain. The Chief Spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Congress, Ravinder Sharma, has accused the central government of deliberately delaying the Assembly elections in the region because it anticipates defeat for the BJP. Sharma argued that if the BJP were to lose the elections, it would undermine their narrative that the abrogation of Article 370 was supported by the people of J&K. Similarly, R S Chib, the General Secretary of the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) and a former minister, also echoed similar sentiments, attributing the delay in Assembly elections to the declining popularity of the BJP among the people. Chib questioned why the BJP could conduct local body polls but not hold Assembly elections, suggesting that they were aware they could not form a government independently.
J&K has been without an Assembly since November 2018 when the legislative assembly was dissolved by the then-governor Satyapal Malik. The imposition of the governor’s rule in June 2018 followed the BJP’s withdrawal from the PDP-BJP coalition government led by Mehbooba Mufti. The last Assembly elections in J&K took place in 2014. The current Assembly term was originally set to end in 2020 but was extended by the central government in 2019. Despite this extension, the central government has not yet announced a date for the next Assembly elections in the union territory. Following the fresh delimitation last year, the new J&K Assembly has 114 seats, of which 24 are in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Of the rest 90 where elections could be held, 47 are in the Kashmir Valley and the rest 43 in the Jammu region.
But the delay in the electoral process has been a source of deep unease in J&K. The Election Commission of India must promptly address these concerns and ensure that the democratic process is upheld in the union territory.
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