NEW DELHI: Assembly elections in India-held Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) will be conducted from Sept 18 to Oct 1, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Friday, setting the stage for the first major electoral exercise in the disputed region since its dismemberment in August 2019. The last polls were held in the unbroken state in 2014.

Meanwhile, assembly elections in the BJP-ruled Haryana would be held on October 1, the ECI said.

The counting of votes will take place on October 4. In 2019, elections in Haryana were held along with Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar said polls in held J&K would be held in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1.

The polls will be held in single phase on October 1 in Haryana. Mr Kumar said there was great enthusiasm among the people in held J&K and they wanted to participate in the poll process.

Authorities order major reshuffle in administration, police hours before the announcement

“People want elections to be conducted there as early as possible…The long queues at the polling booth in J&K during the Lok Sabha elections are proof that people not only want change but also want to raise their voices by becoming a part of that change. This glimpse of hope and democracy shows that the people want to change the picture. They want to write their own destiny.”

It was the Supreme Court, however, that ordered state polls to be held in held J&K by September.

The poll schedule was announced a month after the Modi government widened the scope of the J&K lieutenant governor’s (LG) powers from police and public order to postings and prosecution sanctions. The opposition condemned the move calling it the step to rendering the chief minister in J&K “powerless” and disempowering the region’s people.

Reshuffle

Hours before the schedule was announced, the authorities ordered a major reshuffle in the J&K police and administration.

Former chief minister Omar Abdullah said that the J&K administration had to call officers to the secretariat and police headquarters to work on Independence Day to order this massive reshuffle meant they had absolutely “no clue” that the ECI would be announcing poll dates.

“All the more reason that the @ECISVEEP should look at this transfer order from the prism of a free & fair poll. @JKNC_ suspects a biased intent on the part of the @OfficeOfLGJandK,” he wrote on X.

Ali Mohamad Sagar, a leader of Abdullah’s National Conference (NC), said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointed LG appears to have orchestrated the reshuffle to benefit his party and its allies.

“This move seems clearly intended to undermine the integrity of the electoral process, which restricts such transfers to prevent the ruling party from gaining an undue administrative advantage over the opposition,” said Sagar.

He added the LG government has strategically shaken up the entire administrative set-up compromising the principles of free and fair elections.

“We call on the @ECISVEEP to thoroughly investigate this blatant attempt and to immediately suspend the implementation of these orders.”

In July, the government amended the transaction rules in the J&K Reorganisation Act enacted alongside the revocation of the Constitution’s Article 370, which gave the region semi-autonomous status, in 2019 for the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into the Union Territories of J&K with an assembly and Ladakh without one. The amendments give LG, who reports to the union government, more say in matters of administrative importance.

Abdullah then said the people of held J&K deserve better than a powerless, rubber-stamp chief minister who will have to beg the LG to get their peon appointed.

Mr Kumar and election commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and SS Sandhu this month held deliberations with leaders across party lines in J&K as the ECI began the process of deciding the schedule for polls in the region. Representatives of different parties urged the poll body to hold the elections as soon as possible and ensure a level playing field.

Held J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the BJP withdrew support to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led coalition government. The region was under the governor’s rule before the Union government in August 2019 revoked Article 370 of the Constitution.

In Haryana, the term of state assembly ends on November 3. The assembly polls in the state will be held months after the ruling BJP, which has been in power in the state since 2014, and Opposition Congress wrested five Lok Sabha seats each.

The BJP led in 44 assembly segments while the Congress-Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alliance in 46 across 10 parliamentary constituencies. AAP has announced it will contest the assembly polls on its own in Haryana.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2024