After ULB, Centre mulling Assembly polls in J&K

Buoyed by the success of local polls, the Centre is seriously thinking of holding state elections along with the LS polls.

On the recommendations of Governor Satya Pal Malik, the Centre is seriously mulling to hold Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir along with parliamentary polls. Reports said that Central agencies working on the ground have been encouraged by the just concluded Urban Local Bodies (ULB) in the state as very less violence was witnessed, though government forces were anticipating a lot of it during these polls.

The Governor, according to the reports, has told the Central government that they should not delay holding the Assembly elections in the state and should not be bogged down by the boycott threats of National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP). NC and PDP boycotted the ULB elections citing “silence” of the Centre over preserving the special status of the state.

The reports said that Malik has strongly recommended holding of the state elections as soon as possible and has written to the Centre that they should think beyond the Abdullahs and Muftis to hold the polls in the Valley. Already, the Centre, on the recommendations of the intelligence grid, is looking for new faces in the mainstream politics of Kashmir and has decided to provide them with space in the absence of the traditional mainstream political parties.

Raj Bhavan is fast becoming the centre for all those educated youth who have political ambitions and recently the Governor held many meetings with some of these youth leaders. According to one such leader, the Governor told them to be ready for the Assembly elections and assured them that they would get a level playing field including secure environment to contest these polls.

One of the youth leaders, who is the central point for other such educated youth to come into politics, said that the Governor has assured them that the polls would be held in the most transparent and fair manner.

While the PDP-BJP coalition government in the past could not even hold these Panchayat and ULB elections, citing the prevailing situation of the Valley, the Central government successfully conducted these elections and are now mulling to hold Assembly elections as soon as possible, probably along with the coming parliamentary elections.

Recently, in a television interview, the Governor said that he could not wait for the situation to improve to hold elections in the state. He said that the previous dispensations could not hold even a byelection in the Anantnag parliamentary constituency due to the fluid situation of South Kashmir.