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| 1957, 1962, 1967 & 1972 polls were sham: SAC | | NEWS ANALYSIS | | SANT KUMAR SHARMA
Jammu, January 20:
The ruling coalition partners in Jammu & Kashmir, the National Conference and the Congress, have a long love-hate relationship with one another. They had some honeymoon periods and then fought bitterly, truly like estranged spouses, when they fell out with one another.
The first honeymoon period lasted over six years when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru supported Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah - lock, stock and barrel – before 1947 and continued to support him till his dismissal in August 1953.
The next 22 years, till 1975, were a period of acrimony between the two and this ended only with the Sheikh’s return to power, sans autonomy. This period lasted till Sheikh’s death in September 1982.
By June 1983, when the elections to the state Legislative Assembly were held, the two parties were at daggers drawn. The NC, for the first time being led by Farooq Abdullah, defeated the Congress at the hustings.
A year later, the Congress had toppled Farooq government with the help of G M Shah. Estrangement between the two almost only got cemented further and there was turmoil in the state.
Till Rajiv Gandhi decided to call a truce and joined hands with Farooq Abdullah in 1986 and the Rajiv-Farooq accord led to the two parties contesting the 1987 elections together.
Some Kashmir-watchers blame the alleged rigging in the 1987 elections as a cause for the eruption of militancy some years later. The NC and the Congress defend themselves vehemently and deny any wrong-doing.
The State Autonomy Committee (SAC), in the year 2000, termed at least four legislative assembly elections held in J&K as sham, even though not in as many words and as bluntly. Let us go back to the first parting of ways between the NC and the Congress.
On August 8, 1953, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah was dismissed and imprisoned on orders from the Central government. He was also the leader of the Constituent Assembly which was drafting the state’s constitution.
Sheikh and his colleagues were imprisoned on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s orders. The event has been described by the State Autonomy Committee (SAC) as ``the first major shock received by the people of the state after the new relationship’’.
The reference to ``new relationship’’ here is to the accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Indian Union.
``A reign of terror was let loose. An era of corruption began. So did a phase of unconstitutionality’’ the SAC said describing those events.
Far more interesting is the manner in which the SAC described the four successive elections that took place in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1972. These four elections in which Sheikh could not take part due to incarceration in jails have been described as ``highly controversial elections to the State Assembly’’.
Elections of 1957, the first held after the unfortunate incident of 1953 (Sheikh’s imprisonment), were internationally decried, according to SAC. The elections of 1962 were also allegedly held on a similar pattern.
In the 1967 elections, the official National Conference (NC) became a branch of the National Congress in J&K. A dissident section of the NC in 1966 had already decided to party company with the Congress and contested the elections held next year.
The SAC report alleges that scrutiny of papers of the contestants by the returning officer was used as an alibi to disqualify those who challenged the Congress nominees.
Nomination papers of as many as 22 contestants from as many constituencies contesting against the National Congress candidates were rejected. The Congress candidates were declared elected unopposed from these constituencies and they did not have to even seek votes.
The SAC has more harsh words about the alleged rigging the Congress resorted to. It said that wherever fair contests were allowed in the Kashmir valley, the Congress candidates lost, both in parliamentary polls and the assembly elections.
Incidentally, at that time the parliamentary and legislative assembly elections were held simultaneously. The tenures of both the legislatures becoming coterminus, it was possible to do so.
It may be mentioned here that the Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah, had said some days ago that he favoured simultaneously Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly elections.
His views assume significance when we consider the fact that the term of the state assembly is of six years and that of the Lok Sabha only five years. This leads us to the question as to whether he is toying with the idea of reducing the tenure of J&K Legislative Assembly to five years, just as it was prior to 1977.
The elections to the state assembly were held in November 2008 and that of the Lok Sabha in April-May 2009. The next Lok Sabha elections are due in April-May 2014 and if Omar works towards reduction of the state assembly’s term to five years to hold simultaneous polls, the present assembly will still have a term of more than five and a half years.
The term of the assembly constituted in 2014 can then end in 2019 and be co-terminus with that of the Lok Sabha. As of now, all this is only speculation though.
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