Weather, security situation to be factored in before scheduling Jammu & Kashmir polls: CEC

The Election Commission will take into account the security situation and the weather conditions before taking a call on holding assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, chief of the poll-panel Rajiv Kumar said on Wednesday.

The Chief Election Commissioner told journalists that the Returning Officers and the Additional Electoral Registration Officers in the rearranged and the newly created constituencies in J&K had already been appointed. He also noted that the special summary revision of the electoral roll in the Union Territory had also been completed.

“We are conscious that in any place which is due for elections, it is our duty that we get the government in place as mandated,” Kumar said in response to a query from a journalist during a news conference in New Delhi.

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The next assembly elections will be the first in J&K after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in August 2019 moved to strip the erstwhile state of its special status and reorganized it into two Union Territories.

“We are aware that once the process is complete, they (polls) must be held. And taking the weather, the security concerns and all other factors...other elections at that time.... (into consideration, we will take a decision),” said the Chief Election Commissioner.

He noted that the delimitation process in J&K had been completed and so had been the special summary revision or the revision of the electoral roll.

The J&K Reorganization Act 2019 provided for raising the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the union territory of J&K from 107 to 114, with 24 seats to be reserved for India's territory in J&K currently under illegal occupation of Pakistan. So, the Delimitation Commission redrew the boundaries of the remaining 90 constituencies, raising the number from 83.

Six of the seven new constituencies were added to Jammu, while Kashmir got one. Nine assembly constituencies were reserved for Scheduled Tribes for the first time in the history of J&K – six in Jammu and three in Kashmir. Seven constituencies were reserved for Scheduled Castes.

The number of seats in Jammu now increased from 37 to 43 and in Kashmir from 46 to 47.

The final electoral roll of Jammu and Kashmir was published on November 25 last year. The revision of the electoral roll was carried out after a gap of nearly three years. It was last carried out with reference to January 1, 2019 as the qualifying date.

The assembly election in J&K was not held after the coalition Government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) collapsed in 2018.