The head of the Indian Election Commission has said on Friday that India Managed by Jammu and Kashmir I am the first local assembly in a decade Elections going to happen
In 2019 by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre Indian administered Kashmir Elections could not be held in this disputed region after the change of constitutional status and imposition of direct rule from New Delhi.
Speaking to journalists in New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar said that ‘after a long gap, elections are going to be held in Jammu and Kashmir and will be held.’
Polling for the regional assembly will be held in three phases between September 18 and October 1.
The Election Commission says that a total of 87 lakh people will be eligible to vote. Counting of votes across the region will be done simultaneously on October 4.
Results are usually declared on the same day.
The Muslim-majority region has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence from British rule in 1947, with both countries claiming the entire region.
Some people see the elections as an important step towards returning to the people the right to choose their leaders.
But critics say the 90-seat assembly will have only nominal powers in the education and culture sectors and key decisions will still be made in New Delhi.
Some hard-line militants, who demand independence for Kashmir or its merger with New Delhi’s arch-rival Pakistan, oppose the election because they see it as justifying Indian rule.
They demand that a referendum be held to decide the future of the Himalayan region with a population of around 12 million.
Around 500,000 Indian troops are stationed in the region, fighting a 35-year-old insurgency in which thousands of civilians, soldiers and militants have lost their lives since 1989.
Elections for five seats in the Indian National Parliament were held in June.
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According to the Election Commission, the voter turnout was 58.6 percent, which is 30 percent higher than the last election in 2019 and the highest in 35 years.
Key separatist leaders, who had earlier called for a boycott of the elections, are in jail.
The last assembly elections were held in 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed an alliance with the People’s Democratic Party to form the government.
The state assembly was dissolved in 2018 after a split from the BJP and the collapse of the ruling coalition.
In 2019, the Modi government abolished the partial autonomy of the region and turned it into a federally administered ‘Union Territory’.
Due to this change, proposed elections were stalled and since then there is no legislature at the local level and instead the territory is governed by a governor appointed by the Indian government.
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2024-08-17 17:24:19
