Poll season is on the cards in Jammu and Kashmir

All the political parties are geared up for the electoral battle on ground zero

August 30, 2023

Ahead of polls, ULB final electoral rolls published

The poll season is on the cards in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Chief Electoral Officer on August 29 published the fresh electoral rolls to conduct the Urban Local bodies polls.

The summary revision of the rolls was ordered last month.

The Chief Electoral Officer, J&K P K Pole is expected to review the poll preparedness soon after the culmination of the two-month-long Amarnath yatra on August 31.

The Municipal elections were last held in J&K in September 2018, in four phases and on a party basis. J&K has two municipal corporations, 19 municipal councils, and 57 municipal committees.

The term of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) will be complete on November 5 and that of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) on November 14 while the terms of all other Municipal bodies including Councils and Committees in the UT will end between October-November.

Soon after the conduct of the Urban local bodies polls the UT administration is also expected to take a call on the conduct of the Panchayat polls. According to official sources, the state election commissioner is expected to notify fresh summary revision of the electoral rolls ahead of the Panchayat polls as well.

The last Panchayat polls were held on a non-party basis during November – December 2018, leading to the election of 3,459 sarpanches and 22,214 panches.

While these elected panchayats were constituted on January 10, 2019, the remaining 1011 sarpanch constituencies and 11,639 panch constituencies were filled up through byelection held in February 2020.

After readying the electoral rolls the election machinery in the Union Territory is expected to complete the exercise for the rotation of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Women. Women enjoy 33 percent reservation in Municipalities and Panchayats.

The five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, currently hearing a set of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370, Tuesday asked the Centre to specify a time frame for the restoration of electoral democracy in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, saying the present arrangement “has to come to an end”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, told the bench the Union Territory status of Jammu and Kashmir is not a “permanent thing” and that the government will make an elaborate statement on the issue in the court on August 31.

Now all eyes are set on the response of the Union government following which a fresh assessment of the security scenario will be taken before announcing any poll schedule kickstarting the marathon exercise of electing the popular government.

Meanwhile, almost all the political parties are geared up for the electoral battle on ground zero. On one hand, the Bharatiya Janta Party is aggressively pushing its development-oriented agenda while on the other hand, all the opposition parties have joined hands together to expose the shortcomings of the LG’s administration leading to the widening of the gap between the government and the common masses.

Bharatiya Janta Party had won the majority of seats in the Jammu Municipal Corporation while Junaid Mattu, candidate of the Peoples Conference was elected as the Mayor with support from the BJP in the Srinagar Municipal Corporation.

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2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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