J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party regime fell as the latter withdrew support from the alliance
National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said while India is mother of democracy, “it was not reflecting in J&K”, hinting towards the “delay” in assembly and local body polls.
Almost all the political parties in J&K have been strongly demanding assembly polls in the UT. J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party regime fell as the latter withdrew support from the alliance.
The term of Ppanchayats and the urban local bodies also ended. Charge of the panchayats has been given to block development officers (BDO’s) for six months. The former chief minister has been vocal about not holding the assembly and panchayat polls in J&K.
“It’s a big irony. For the world, India is the mother of democracy, but we are committing its murder in Jammu and Kashmir. If there is mother of democracy, why not here. For urban local bodies polls, if delimitation was mandatory why wasn’t it initiated earlier. We don’t understand why the decision of delimitation after the elected bodies tenure ended was started,” Omar said in Srinagar.
Omar also questioned why the election process for panchayats in J&K was not initiated six months before the end of five-year term of panchayats.
Omar said that to hold elections in J&K was the duty of the Election Commission of India and the Centre had to help them. “It’s unfortunate that neither the ECI, not the Centre took this decision. Supreme Court has to direct ECI for assembly polls in J&K.”
The former CM said that they were already preparing for parliament elections. “When assembly elections will be announced, we will also prepare for those.”
Omar clarified that his party hasn’t taken any decision about the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
