JOIN USAssembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir unlikely this year
With Election Commission (EC) extending the date for special summary revision of electoral rolls in Jammu & Kashmir, the possibility of holding of the much-awaited Assembly polls in the Union Territory (UT) this year looks unlikely.
Earlier, on June 29, the EC had fixed the October 31 deadline for final publication of electoral rolls. However, on Tuesday, the poll body extended the date by 25 more days and as per the new schedule, the publication of electoral rolls has to be finalised by November 25.
According to a press release issued by J&K’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the revision activities will begin on September 15.
“In order to provide more opportunities to the youth of Jammu and Kashmir, the Commission has extended the period for filing of claims and objections from 30 days to 40 days i.e. 15th September to 25th October, 2022,” it reads. The final electoral roll shall be published on November 25, 2022.
A senior officer said that the little window left for the first-ever Assembly polls in UT this year seems to be closed. “In the past, elections have been held in November and early December, but now as the EC has extended the date for revision of electoral rolls, polls can’t be held before April-May 2023,” he said.
The upper reaches of Jammu and Kashmir remain heavily snow-clad after the last week of November, and it is a Herculean task to hold elections during that time.
J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the BJP broke its alliance with PDP, forcing the chief minister of the PDP-BJP alliance Mehbooba Mufti to resign. After a brief Central rule, the BJP government at the Centre abrogated Article 370 and reduced the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two UTs -- Ladakh and J&K.
In March 2020, the Centre set up a Delimitation Commission for J&K to redraw Assembly and Parliament seats in accordance with J&K Reorganization Act-2019.
For two years, the delimitation exercise had taken center stage in J&K’s frozen politics with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah several times saying that the Assembly polls in the UT will be held only after the completion of the redrawing of the electoral map.
After several delays, the Commission filed its final report in May this year. The commission made significant changes and increased six Assembly seats in the Jammu region and one in the Kashmir valley and brought the Rajouri and Poonch regions under the Anantnag parliamentary seat.