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EC holds talks on J&K Assembly election

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India on Monday convened a meeting of national parties and State recognised parties of Jammu and Kashmir to discuss issues relating to the forthcoming Assembly election and obtained their views separately.

The State is under Governor’s rule and the election is to be held before January 9, 2009.

The meeting presided over by Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami was attended by representatives of seven national political parties — the Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (M), Nationalist Congress Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal — and three State parties — the National Conference, National Panthers Party and People’s Democratic Party.

Highly placed sources in the Commission told The Hindu that in the next stage discussions would be held with the Union Home Secretary, who would be apprised of the views of the parties. A decision on holding the election would be taken thereafter.

Sources said that the Congress left it to the Commission to decide whether to hold election at this juncture after assessing the ground realities. The party made it clear that it would abide by the Commission’s decision.

The BJP told the Commission that it should not succumb to the pressure of separatists and the election should be held in October or November. The Left parties also wanted election on time and the Commission should not be bothered about one or two incidents in the State. It was made clear that election, whenever held, should not become a farce.

The National Conference and the PDP opposed the conduct of election now as “the situation is not conducive.” “Before conducting polls the dialogue process needs to be initiated since so far both the Centre and the State have not taken any steps in this regard. If election is held now only five to 10 per cent of the electorate will vote. We don’t want to deny the democratic right of voters.”

The Panthers Party and the NCP wanted delimitation of constituencies to be done before election.

Neena Vyas reports from New Delhi:

The Bharatiya Janata Party favours timely election to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

In a written communication to the Election Commission, the party noted that the month of Ramzan would be over on October 1, and the Dussehra and Diwali festivals would also take place by the end of next month. Therefore, there was no reason to delay the election, which could be held anytime from October to November 2008.

The BJP recalled that after the September-October 2002 Assembly election, the democratic process was strengthened and the international community recognised that Jammu and Kashmir had not slipped out of democracy.

Talking to journalists, party general secretary Arun Jaitley said normality had returned to the Jammu region, and there was near-normality in the Kashmir Valley.

The holding of election would give a chance to the mainstream political parties to fill the space partly occupied by the separatists in the Valley. Not holding election in time would contribute to the separatists continuing to hold that political space, he said.

Asked about the People’s Democratic Party’s stand that the atmosphere was not conducive for early election, Mr. Jaitley said: “I think the situation is not conducive for the PDP.”

The BJP had begun preparing for it. It held a meeting of its party in Jammu on Sunday and the process of selection of candidates was on, Mr. Jaitley said.

He indicated that the party’s main poll plank in Jammu would be “discrimination” against the region.

The party stuck to its position that the Jammu region was under-represented politically as it had fewer seats than the Valley region though it had more people on the electoral rolls.

Mr. Jaitley rejected the census figures of 2001 that showed the Valley with a higher population than the Jammu region.

He rejected the argument that the Election Commission might have failed to register a large number of voters in the remote regions of the Valley.

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