 Jammu, Jan 7: All Jammu Kashmir Panchayat Conference (AJKPC), a frontline body of elected Sarpanches and Panches, extended full cooperation to the Election Commission and the UT administration for early conduct of elections to over 12,000 vacant Panchayat seats in Jammu and Kashmir.
The AJKPC said it was ready for elections to fill all the vacant Panchayat seats, particularly in Kashmir Valley, to further strengthen the grassroots level democracy.
“We welcome the decision of the Election Commission and the government to hold elections to over 12,000 vacant seats of Sarpanches and Panches in J&K. We hope that it would further strengthen the grassroots level democracy and restore the faith of the people in democratic institutions,” said Anil Sharma, AJKPC president.
Flanked by the Sarpanches from Kashmir Valley, Sharma said the AJKPC, which always favoured strengthening of grassroots democracy and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in J&K, wants early conduct of these polls which the people, especially from Kashmir, had been awaiting for the past of over one year.
“The people of Kashmir could not participate in these elections in 2018 due to boycott calls by the political parties and separatists, and threats from terror groups. These people had been suffering due to non-existences of Panchayats as the development activities have come to a complete halt,” the AJKPC president said.
He said it was a welcome initiative of the Centre, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to fill all vacant seats of Panchayats aimed at empowering the people at grassroots level. “Every member of AJKPC and other elected Sarpanches and Panches of J&K will wholeheartedly support this decision of the government and the election commission. It will help the Panchayats, which were not constituted till date, to carry out development activities with the flow of funds,” the AJKPC leader said.
Prominent among those who attended the press conference included Des Raj Bhagat, Amjad Choudhary, Jatinder Singh, Ghulam Rasool Ganai, Jaan Mohammad, Mustaq Ahmad, Sansar Singh Jamwal, S. Ravinder Singh, Hans Raj Thakur, Aijaz Mehar, Abdul Karim Chad, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat. |
