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| Weather vagaries, uncertain political situation may push JK elections to spring of 2020 | | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
srinagar, Nov 16: The first Lieutenant Governor of the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir Girish Chandra Murmu has dropped enough hints that elections for legislative assembly would be held soon. However, given the present scenario it would be difficult to do the same.
As the Kashmir valley is battling the early onset of winter the people at helm would think twice before holding the elections here. The early onset of winter along with the uncertain situation in the valley would make it virtually impossible to hold the elections in the coming months.
Sources told Early Times that Assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir are not possible before the next year's spring. They said that by that time the weather scenario would have improved to a great extent and the situation too might have become favourable in the valley.
"As on date there are optimum chances that elections for Jammu & Kashmir would be held sometime in April and May in 2020. Since the winter season ends in March in Kashmir holding elections before that would not be thought off by the people at helm," said sources.
Sources said that since the holy month of Ramzan begins in the last week of April the authorities would ideally like to complete the electoral process in the Kashmir valley before that. They said that weather in Jammu those days is also likely to be fine with the day temperature being normal to a large extent.
"The first job to be taken up by the new dispensation is the delimitation of assembly seats. This process would take few months and only after that some decision could be taken about the holding of Assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir. As such one should not hope that elections are held so soon," said sources.
Sources said that since Government of India has promised to carry out the delimitation process in Jammu & Kashmir as early as possible they cannot think of holding elections without fulfilling this promise. In other words it can be said that elections in Jammu & Kashmir are conditional with the delimitation of assembly seats.
It would be in place to mention here that elections for the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly were due in October 2020. However, since the assembly was dissolved in November last year it is imperative that the assembly elections are held at the earliest. It was due to this reason that President's Rule was imposed in Jammu & Kashmir.
In the last assembly Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the single largest party with 28 seats closely followed by Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) with 25 members. The PDP and BJP came together and formed the coalition government on March 1, 2015. While Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the chief minister up to January 7, 2016 his daughter Mehbooba Mufti took up the reigns in April 2016.
The PDP-BJP government came to an abrupt end on June 19, 2018 when BJP came out of the coalition following which Governor's Rule was imposed in the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir. In November last year then Governor Satya Pal Malik recommended for the President's Rule after PDP, National Conference and Congress came forward to stitch a coalition in order to form the government.
Since then Jammu & Kashmir has been absolved of its special status and it has been bifurcated. On August 5 this year the parliament passed a resolution abrogating Article 370 and Article 35-A of the Constitution giving special status to Jammu & Kashmir. The erstwhile state was divided into two union territories Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. While Jammu & Kashmir would have an assembly, Ladakh has been deprived of the same. |
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