SRINAGAR, Feb 12: The All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) on Tuesday unveiled its own election commission, aimed at holding polls for representatives to discuss Kashmir’s future in trilateral talks with Pakistan and India.
The six-member commission, which the Indian government has already made clear it has no intention of recognizing, is jointly headed by Pakistan’s former chief justice, Syed Sajjad Ali Shah, and Indian human rights activist Tapan Bose.
“The two men of integrity and honesty will be the co-chairmen of the election commission,” said Abdul Gani Bhat, chairman of the APHC. He said the commission would be an “autonomous body”. The four other members of the commission are Ved Bhasin, owner of a Jammu-based English newspaper, Raja Khurshid, a jurist in Azad Kashmir, Sidiq Wahid, a professor in occupied Kashmir’s Buddhist-dominated Ladakh region, and Zafar Mehdi, a renowned physician in occupied Kashmir.
“The four will act as commissioners in their respective areas,” Bhat said. The Hurriyat wants to hold polls across Kashmir, including Azad Kashmir.
“It is my duty to clarify that these polls are not being held to form any government or enter the state assembly,” Bhat said, adding that elected representatives would have the sole role of holding talks with India and Pakistan. The Hurriyat has declined to give any timeframe for holding the elections, and critics have dismissed the election commission as a gimmick.
India’s junior foreign minister Omar Abdullah, a member of held Kashmir’s ruling National Conference, said the Hurriyat’s election commission was an irrelevance. “The government of India already has a very independent, well respected internationally commission,” Abdullah said in an interview with the Star television network.—AFP
