NC for, PDP against early polls

Barring the PDP, almost all political parties in J&K want the elections in the state, which witnessed large-scale violence over the Amarnath land row issue, to be conducted as soon as possible, writes Arun Joshi.

A day ahead of the Election Commission (EC) meeting with regional and other political parties in New Delhi to decide on election dates in Jammu and Kashmir, the two main regional parties — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference (NC) — have come up with divergent view points.

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While the NC is for the elections, the PDP has suggested any such move can prove “counter productive”.

In a resolution passed by the PDP on Sunday, the party leaders said “pushing J-K into elections could prove counter-productive in a situation where the people are forced into a deep feeling of alienation, disillusionment, hopelessness and aloofness”.

The PDP's rival National Conference, however, has hinted at being ready to fight elections. In an interview to a televsion channel, Omar Abdullah said: “Yes, we have had elections in much worse circumstances. ’96, ’98, ’99 elections that I fought, even in 2002. (In) 2002 the ground situation, militancy wise was much worse in the state than it is now.”

The Congress and BJP, too have showed their eagerness to have elections on time. BJP's national general secretaryArun Jaitly said “no hurdle should be allowed to come in the way of the elections”, while PCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz too has his partymen “to be ready for polls.”