Amid delimitation row, EC says J-K poll date after Amarnath Yatra

The commission, the panel said in an order, had unanimously decided that “holding of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir shall be considered later in this year”.

The Election Commission said on Tuesday it will take a call on announcing assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir after the Amarnath Yatra, which begins next month, even as former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti criticised the local unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for backing the demand to lift the freeze on delimitation of assembly seats in the state.

File photo: Paramilitary soldier stands guard as Kashmiri voters wait in a queue to cast their votes during the third phase of election in shangus in south Kashmirs Anantnag district on April 23, 2019.(Photo by Waseem Andrabi/ Hindustan Times)

The poll watchdog said it unanimously decided that “holding of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir shall be considered later in this year”. The coalition government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP collapsed in June last year after the Amit Shah-led party said the alliance had become “untenable”.

“The commission will keep on regularly and on real-time basis monitoring the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, taking inputs from all necessary quarters and after the conclusion of Amarnath Yatra will announce the election schedule for the conduct of assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir,” the EC said in an indication that the state polls could be held later this year.

After the BJP pulled out of the coalition government in June 2018, Governor’s rule was imposed in the state, which was followed after six months with the imposition of President’s rule. In March, the EC decided not to hold polls for the assembly and Lok Sabha simultaneously in the state, citing security concerns.

The Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly has 87 seats – 46 in Kashmir, 37 in Jammu and 4 in Ladakh. The BJP’s state unit is hopeful that by the fresh delimitation, the numbers of seats could go up in the Jammu region compared to Kashmir and the party will have an edge over its rivals in the elections, a local leader said.

A home ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied reports that home minister Amit Shah was believed to have considered the issue of fresh delimitation of constituencies and appointment of a delimitation commission.

Reacting over the issue, Abdullah, the vice president of the National Conference, said his party would strongly oppose any such measure.

“When delimitation takes place in the rest of the country the BJP is welcome to apply it to J&K until then we in the @JKNC_ will oppose, tooth & nail, any attempt to make changes without a mandate from the people of the state,” he tweeted.

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said that instead of allowing old wounds to heal, the Modi government was inflicting another “emotional partition” of Jammu and Kashmir.

Former deputy CM and BJP leader Kavinder Gupta, however, welcomed the move to give better representation to the Jammu region.