After a decade’s gap, fresh elections to the legislative assembly in India’s Jammu and Kashmir will be held in September-October, setting the stage for the return of a popular government.
At a media conference in New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced that the elections to the 90-member assembly will be held in three separate phases — September 18, September 25 and October 1. The counting of votes will be held on October 4.
Jammu and Kashmir has 87.09 lakh voters, including 42.6 lakh women, across 90 constituencies, Kumar said. A total of 1,838 polling stations will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, he added.
Kumar said Jammu and Kashmir has a “changed scenario” after parliamentary polls earlier this year as “layers of democracy have been strengthened”.
Last year, India’s Supreme Court had directed the Election Commission to hold the assembly elections in the Jammu and Kashmir region by September 30, 2024.
The court’s direction was part of the verdict on pleas challenging the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under the constitution by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019.
The last assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir were held in 2014 when it was still a state. Following a fractured mandate, a coalition government comprising Mehbooba Mufti-led People’s Democratic Party and BJP was installed but the alliance broke up in 2018 as BJP pulled out.
The state was put under the rule of the federal Indian government amidst a move by PDP and National Conference led by Farooq Abdulla to join hands and form an alternative dispensation.
In 2019, Jammu and Kashmir lost its statehood and bifurcated in two parts when the Modi government scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution, turning the region into a federally-run area.
Earlier this year, the parliamentary elections in Jammu and Kashmir had seen a very impressive turnout and were held mostly free from terror-related violence.
