On June 19, 2018, the last Jammu and Kashmir government ceased to exist. Then-chief minister Mehbooba Mufti resigned as the coalition of her Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the nationally ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke up. Mufti blamed her resignation on the “muscular policy” of the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir.
It has been six years since Jammu and Kashmir saw its last local government elected by the voters. The status quo of the central rule looks set to change. About 8.7 million voters will be electing their Assembly and therefore their local government by September.
When Jammu and Kashmir’s last elected government fell
With differences growing over a number of issues with Mufti’s PDP, the BJP pulled out of the coalition in Jammu and Kashmir on June 19, 2018. Ram Madhav, the BJP leader who had played a key role in cobbling up the “unnatural” alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, told a news conference in New Delhi, “It has become untenable for the BJP to continue with the alliance government in Jammu and Kashmir.”
The BJP favoured Governor’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir. Madhav said, “Keeping in mind that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and in order to control the prevailing situation in the State, we have decided that the reins of power in the state be handed over to the Governor.”
This left no alternative before Mufti but to resign as both the J&K National Conference and the Congress — the two other major parties — had refused to ally with her PDP for government formation.
“We defended Article 370 and 35A”, Mufti said after her resignation, “We can’t treat J&K as enemy territory. There is no room for ‘muscular policy’ in the state.”
The big change that Jammu and Kashmir underwent
NN Vohra, then J&K governor, sent his report to the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, recommending the imposition of Governor’s Rule. The Raj Bhawan spokesperson said, “After concluding consultations with all the major political parties in J&K, Governor Vohra has forwarded his report to the President of India for imposition of Governor’s Rule under Section 92 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.”
By the end of 2018, the Centre imposed President’s Rule in Jammu and Kashmir which is still in force there. But the biggest change came in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, when the Narendra Modi government, having been voted back, brought resolutions and bills in Parliament to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir, convert both the units into Union Territories and scrap the special status of the territories by ceasing the operation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India there.
With upgraded security arrangements, the central government has managed to prevent much-anticipated civil and militant unrest in the Kashmir Valley, and also bring down terror incidents in the Union Territory — which has incidentally seen an uptick with the Assembly election looking on the horizon.
It came from Supreme Court, now over to Election Commission
On December 11, the Supreme Court of India’s constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud set a deadline for the national government to hold the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir. The court gave time till September to conduct the polls in the Union Territory as it upheld the abrogation of Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir when it enjoyed statehood and before it was bifurcated to create another Union Territory, Ladakh, in 2019.
Soon after the Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha poll results, it kick-started the election process for Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. On June 7 (three days after the Lok Sabha election results were announced), the poll panel invited applications from political parties for the use of common symbols for their candidates.
An EC statement said, “The Commission has decided to accept applications seeking allotment of Common Symbol under Para 10B of the Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968 for the General Election to the Legislative Assembly of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir with immediate effect.”
This symbol allocation process usually starts six months before the term of an Assembly is to end. Since J&K does have an Assembly, the EC decided to start the process after the Lok Sabha election was over. A short-term special summary revision of the electoral roll would be carried out before the Assembly election.
Jammu & Kashmir recorded a voter turnout of 58.58 per cent in the Lok Sabha election held for its five seats. It was the highest voter turnout in 35 years, with a rise of 23 percentage points compared to the 2019 election.
A delimitation has also happened
A Delimitation Commission was set up in 2020 to redraw the boundaries of the Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies after Jammu and Kashmir was divided into two Union Territories — J&K (with an Assembly) and Ladakh (without Assembly) in 2019.
The process was completed and a delimitation order passed in May 2022. It created a 90-member Assembly, with 47 seats in Kashmir and 43 in Jammu — for which election will happen before September 30.
What’s happening now?
Two days after the Election Commission formally started the Assembly election process for Jammu and Kashmir and barely an hour before Narendra Modi was sworn in as the prime minister for the third consecutive term on June 9, nine pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, including a two-year-old child, were killed when terrorists ambushed the bus they were travelling in. The bus fell into a gorge.
This happened in the Reasi district that had been peaceful for the past 15 years. Over the next 48 hours, three more terror incidents took place in Kathua and Doda districts of the Jammu region — at least two militants and a Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) jawan were killed. Seven security personnel were injured.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked security officials to deploy all their anti-terror surveillance capability to foil the plan to disrupt the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has held a series of meetings with top officials of the security apparatus including the Army, the intelligence and the police to see that a tight vigil is maintained in Jammu and Kashmir.
The government has sent 50 battalions of additional central forces (about 50,000) to Jammu and Kashmir to beef up its security.
PM Modi is expected to be in Srinagar on this year’s Yoga Day, an initiative of his government that has drawn global attention and something he participates in with great fanfare. In 10 days from now, the annual Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage is expected to begin. The Yatra is likely to run its full course — first since 2018 — from June 29 to August 19. All these events require a tight security cover in Jammu and Kashmir as they would happen in the build up to the Assembly election that is bound to get eyeballs from across the world.
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