National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said that it is disheartening to see that the Election Commission of India has decided not to conduct Parliamentary and Assembly polls simultaneously in Jammu and Kashmir.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said that on one hand, the poll body has also decided to conduct Assembly elections in four states which will be coinciding with the Lok Sabha polls but Jammu and Kashmir has been denied this opportunity.
Speaking to ANI, Farooq Abdullah said, “On one side the Govt of India wanted One Nation, One Election and on the other side, they are holding State elections and parliamentary elections in four states, why is this (J-K) being denied? When every party wanted elections (in J-K) then what is the reason it is not being done?”
Earlier in the day, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar informed that polls in the Union Territory could not be held after taking inputs from the Jammu and Kashmir administration. He also said that additional forces are required to conduct simultaneous polls in J-K.
“During our recent visit to Srinagar and Jammu, the J&K Administration told us that two elections can’t be held at the same time due to more security requirements. Administration told us that there will be roughly 10 to 12 candidates for each assembly segment which means approximately, there will be 1,000 candidates in fray,” CEC Kumar said.
“This means each candidate needs to be given proper security cover and for that, there was more requirement of additional forces. The Commission is committed to holding Assembly polls in J-K soon after Lok Sabha polls when security forces will be available,” he added.
Questioning the observations made by CEC Kumar, Farooq Abdullah said, “If they say security is the reason, I do not think so. How is that security is alright for the parliamentary elections and not for the state elections?”
Earlier, the National Conference president Farooq Abdullah in December last year had questioned the delay in the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and holding Assembly elections there, saying that people in the Union Territory want an elected government at the earliest.
“I hope that the government will understand the expectations and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and hold the elections as soon as possible. The last elections were held way back in 2014 and people have been keenly awaiting another opportunity to get their fingers inked. The Elections Commission, itself, directed the central government to hold the elections by September next year,” Abdullah said.
Earlier, on December 11, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to take necessary steps for holding elections to the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir by September 30, next year.
On August 5, 2019, the Centre announced the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370 and split the region into two UTs. (ANI)
Questioning why elections have not been conducted in Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said that the people of Union Territory are also a part of India and justice should be done to them accordingly.
Speaking to reporters in Delhi, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said, “Elections have still not happened in Jammu and Kashmir. It’s been six to seven years. What is the reason? We are also a part of India. We should also get justice.”
Farooq Abdullah further said that after the recent results of the Assembly polls in five states, parties in the INDIA bloc should start working harder in a synchronised manner.
“Defeat and victory keep happening. We should learn from victories and defeats. This defeat will not make a difference to the INDIA alliance. We will have to work harder. We have to work in a synchronised manner. We have a long way to go,” he said.
Earlier today, Farooq Abdullah arrived in Delhi to attend the winter session of Parliament.
Before the commencement of the Parliament session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed reporters and said that the Winter Session of Parliament is a “golden opportunity for opposition parties to do something constructive” and asked them not to vent anger at their defeat in assembly polls inside the House.
“The country has rejected negativity. This is a golden opportunity for my friends in the opposition. We urge and pray for the cooperation of everyone. This time too, the process has been undertaken. Rather than venting out their anger at defeat (in assembly elections), they should take lessons from this defeat, shun the idea of negativity that has been there for the last nine years and approach the session with positivity,” PM Modi said.
He also said that the Parliament, which is the temple of democracy, is essential for public aspiration and to strengthen the foundation of developed India.
The Winter Session of the Parliament began today, a day after results for Assembly elections in four states were declared, with the BJP winning three (Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) and Congress ousting the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana.
The Winter session will conclude on December 22. (ANI)
Reacting to Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement on the restoration of statehood in Jammu and Kashmir, JKNC MP Farooq Abdullah on Monday said that they (the government) will give a truncated statehood after elections.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir will come up after assembly polls and that a call on the timing of elections will be taken by the Election Commission. “I had clearly stated that statehood will be restored in Jammu and Kashmir after elections. Process of preparation of voters’ list is nearing completion in the UT. Now, the Election Commission has to take a call on elections,” Shah, in an exclusive interview with ANI, released on Tuesday, said.
To which Jammu and Kashmir’s former CM said that he thinks they (the government) don’t want to give statehood. “They will give truncated statehood after elections,” he added.
Abdullah also alleged that the motive behind the delimitation exercise, completed in UT, is to turn J-K into a Hindu majority state.
“They think that we are fools, but we are not. We know what their intention is, if this was not their intention, they would not have done delimitation as well, as the way they did. They want that it should be converted into a Hindu-majority state,” he added.
Earlier, in an interview with ANI, Shah also said that Article 370 pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir, which was abrogated by the BJP-led government in 2019, had harmed the country.
He said the way development is taking place in Jammu and Kashmir, terrorism is gradually ending.
“See all the figures, there is a lot of change in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
He went on to add that removing Article 370 has been on the agenda of BJP and Jan Sangh. He also referred India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the context of Article 370.
“Since 1950, it was on our agenda to remove Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. Today, the way Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing development and decrease in terrorism shows that changes that are coming,” he said.
Shah said those slamming the BJP should answer in whose tenure terrorism grew in Jammu and Kashmir.
“As far as elections are concerned, do they not remember the local body polls, these were held under our rule, these did not take place for 70 years. Three families were holding sway in Jammu and Kashmir and they are making noise…Farooq Abdullah had gone to England. In whose tenure, terrorism grew, who allowed it to grow, there should be an answer,” he said. (ANI)
National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Monday expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be successful in “ending the Russia-Ukraine war” that has stretched for nearly nine months.
The NC chief stated that the war has created havoc on the global economic situation. “I am happy that India has got the presidency of the G20 Summit. It could be that India has the burden of all these countries. And I hope that the Prime Minister will be successful in ending the Russia-Ukraine war which has created havoc on the economic condition,” Abdullah said while talking to the reporters here.
The war that started in February this year has claimed the lives of thousands of people on both sides.
Abdullah’s statement comes after the G-20 communique in Bali echoed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as it said that “Today’s era must not be of war.”
PM Modi, in his statement to Putin in a bilateral meeting on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand in September this year, had said “now is not the time for war”, referring to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The G 20 communique said, “It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. This includes defending all the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and adhering to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians and infrastructure in armed conflicts. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today’s era must not be of war.”
The NC chief further took a swipe at Union Home Minister Amit Shah over his “will talk to Kashmiri youth instead of Pakistan” remark during his rally in J-K, and said that India has a fight with Pakistan and that we will have to talk to the neighbouring country.
“The other thing is that regarding the problems that we have with our neighbour, it may be possible that the countries will find a solution to it. Home Minister says that he will talk to the youth and not Pakistan. But the fight is against Pakistan, not the children. I am tired of telling him to have talks with Pakistan. India has to talk to Pakistan at some point in time,” he said.
“There is nothing like radicalisation. We are fighting a low-intensity war. There is no other way,” Abdullah added.
The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, talking about the elections that are due to be held in the Union Territory, said that it is up to the Election Commission and the Centre to conduct the polls.
“As far as the elections are concerned, we don’t know when they will be conducted. It is my duty to come and talk to the people and bring out their condition in front of the parliament and the Centre. It is up to the Election Commission and the government of India when to conduct the elections,” he said. (ANI)
Some diehard, liberal optimists are yet again jumping the gun with fake optimism by overwhelmingly asserting that the District Development Council (DDC) election results for about 278 seats in Jammu and Kashmir is “a return to democracy”. There also seems to a view that the election results have proved that the BJP is the single largest party of this former state and new Union Territory, and, therefore, it has been absolved of the arbitrary abrogation of Article 370, the prolonged communication & social lockdown, mass arrests and the military clampdown. This, too, is flagrantly off the mark.
In this freezing cold, the winter of discontent has yet again been reaffirmed and expressed unanimously by the people in the Valley, with all their mistrust and misgivings about the mainstream politicians of the various mainline parties. The DDC polls, if at all, are a reminder, that all is not well in the restive region, and the Valley desperately needs freedom, peace, dignity and democracy. A restoration of the autonomy which was forcibly snatched from the people in early August 2019 by the BJP-led government in Delhi.
The tally of 75 seats for the BJP is a pointer to the sharp religious polarization witnessed in Jammu and Kashmir, especially since 2014. The fact that the BJP had an alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) earlier, against the popular mood, which led to another round of mass unrest in the Valley, has not been forgotten in the region. Certainly, it did not help in mainstreaming BJP in the region, especially in the Valley, more so, after it broke the alliance, as arbitrarily as ever.
The military clampdown followed by the arrests of scores of politicians and ordinary people, the total communication and social and political lockdown which continued for months, including a tacit and overt clampdown on the local media, has not erased from popular memory. If at all, the DDC polls have only highlighted the serious lack of faith, the universal bad faith, and the total alienation witnessed in the valley since August last year.
The BJP winning a large chunk in the Jammu region is predictable, though even the Congress and the National Conference led by the Abdullahs have made inroads there. The Congress won 26 seats. The alliance has won in both mixed areas, as well as in Muslim-dominated areas, overwhelmingly.
There have been palpable fears in the Jammu region that outsiders might usurp their land in the current scenario, and this fear has been widely shared in the region of Ladakh as well. Despite that, the Hindu-dominated Jammu has voted for the local candidates of the BJP. The independents have won over 50 seats. Predictably, there are allegations that the BJP is trying to appropriate the independents.
Members of the Gupkar Alliance in Kashmir
Significantly, the BJP has got only 3 per cent odd votes in the Valley, and three seats in the Srinagar region. The Farooq Abdullah-led People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), comprising the PDP, the CPM, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, and others, have overwhelming won the mandate with 110 seats. And it has not been easy for the alliance, with its leaders such as Mehbooba Mufti and Sajjad Lone widely seen as compromised leaders who had earlier aligned with the BJP, going against the popular mood.
Besides, there were complaints by the alliance that they were not allowed to campaign freely, their movements were restricted, that the central agencies were making life difficult for them, and that their top leaders were not able to reach out to the masses in the interiors. There were also complaints of the BJP using the state machinery to its benefit, as much as pumping in huge money and resources to win the polls.
Let it also not be forgotten, that the Apni Party propped up by Delhi has done badly with only 12 seats. The fact is that the Centre’s manipulative moves to change the course of the region’s politics has not really succeeded, especially in the Valley. Since the military clampdown, the Centre has tried to create a new and alternative leadership, sponsored by the Indian State and aligned to BJP, from the local level leadership, such as the panchayats and the districts. This move has not only boomeranged, but failed singularly in creating an alternative leadership, with most of these local, sponsored chieftains unable to even visit their areas due to the fear of a collective backlash.
Several other myths seem to have been broken by the final results of the polls and the process of campaigning. The BJP’s campaign to remove dynasties simply did not work. Despite the bad faith, the people have restored faith in the old dynasties, including Sajjad Lone, Mufti and the Abdullahs.
Second, the DDC winners will involve themselves with strictly local issues — health, water, infrastructure, among other factors. These are municipal issues and in no way reflect the big political picture and social process of the state. People have clearly voted to make a categorical point in the Valley and in the mixed population areas elsewhere – that they unilaterally and unanimously oppose the abrogation of Article 370, the dissolution of the assembly, the arrest of mainstream leaders and others, the lockdown and the clampdown, and the totalitarian method adopted by the Centre under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah since August last year.
If anything, the poll results yet again reflect mass resentment and anger at the state of affairs and are a signal that the entire strategy of the ruling regime in the region has moved from one political failure to another.
In this context the rhetoric that the polls would end militancy or extremism is much too far-fetched. If anything, Pakistan-backed armed militancy has only increased since the state was turned into a union territory, and there is no sign of it abating. With China fishing in murky waters in Ladakh, hitherto a part of Jammu and Kashmir, allegedly occupying Indian land, despite the high-level talks, the border region will continue to be restive.
Indeed, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris coming to power in America, there is speculation that the human and fundamental rights issue might be again raised by democrats, involving Kashmir. Pakistan is sure to raise it yet again internationally, tacitly backed by China. And with the new American leadership’s stated position in support of democracy, secularism and freedom, if there is a shift in American foreign policy on Kashmir, that surely will be another big headache for the regime in Delhi.
Despite all the shadows and black holes, the DDC poll campaign and the results are a good sign. It restores minimalist electoral democracy in a state under siege and virtual occupation. It also promises the final restoration of autonomy and the state assembly under federal principles of the Indian Constitution, whereby people of the region might once again choose to vote for an elected state government – and not a power structure controlled by the Centre with military clampdown.
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