India will hold provincial elections in the Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir from September 18, the Election Commission said yesterday, the first regional polls there in a decade and five years after New Delhi scrapped the region’s special autonomy.
India’s only Muslim-majority region, Jammu and Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 75 years of animosity with neighbouring Pakistan since the birth of the two nations in 1947 at independence from colonial rule by Britain.
The larger Kashmir region is divided between India, Pakistan and China. The part ruled by India enjoyed a special status that was revoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 and the state was split into two federally-administered territories. The decision to hold fresh elections follows a December order by India’s Supreme Court that rejected petitions challenging the revocation of Kashmir’s special status and set a deadline of September 30 for holding provincial polls.
Nearly 9 million people are registered to vote for the 90-member legislative assembly, the election panel said. Voting will be staggered over three stages between September 18 and October 1.
