Two former J&K Chief Ministers, Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, on Friday opposed any move to defer election for the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, a day after the Election Commission of India (ECI) considered the representations made by a group of parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, for postponement.
“The ECI order to the J&K administration [to assess accessibility in Anantnag-Rajouri] has shocked me. It’s after a long-time people of J&K have reposed faith in democracy. This government has snatched everything. Don’t snatch the ballots too. Don’t repeat 1987, which left Kashmir burning, filled graveyards and impacted generations,” Ms. Mufti said.
Ms. Mufti’s statement came a day after the ECI sought a report from J&K Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) P.K. Pole on “road conditions, weather and accessibility related constraints” in Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, which will go to polls in the third phase on May 7.
The ECI’s direction came after representations made by BJP’s Ravinder Raina, J&K Peoples Conference’s Imran Reza Ansari, J&K Apni Party’s Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari, J&K Apni Party’s Mohammad Saleem Parray and J&K Nationalist People’s Front. Besides, Ali Mohammad Wani and Arsheed Ali Lone, both Independent candidates, have made a similar representation. Interestingly, the BJP is not contesting from the seat.
According to these representations, “candidates from Rajouri and Poonch couldn’t file their nomination papers due to closure of Mughal Road in view of snowfall”.
However, Ms. Mufti took a road trip to Poonch-Rajouri from the Mughal Road on Thursday. “I have come from the Mughal Road. It’s open from April 8. It was closed for a few days. Landslides take place throughout the year. The BJP is a rich organisation and can take these parties, which wrote to ECI, in choppers. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a poor organisation and workers have paid from their own pockets in the past 20-30 days to carry out campaigning. I ask the ECI what is behind the move. Any delay will deny us a level playing field,” Ms. Mufti said.
In a letter to the ECI, Ms. Mufti said the move “is targeted at derailing our campaign”. “The Kathua-Udhampur constituency is almost similarly placed geographically and climatically but the election there has been already held in much worse weather and road conditions. It will be highly dubious to do so now in the last week of the campaigning,” the letter reads.
“The ECI has the distinction of having carried out logistically unhindered elections even in the middle of harsh winter and snow falls and never before in the history of J&K has any election been postponed for weather conditions. The main alliance partner of the petitioners, BJP, is headquartered in Jammu and therefore faces no difficulty in accessing the Pir Panjal,” the letter said.
Ms. Mufti said the parties, which sought the postponement, “apparently see their electoral calculations coming apart”. “They are now resorting to baseless gimmicks in the obvious belief that the ECI will implement their designs. It will be highly risky not just for the future of democracy in J&K but can also damage the national interest to accede to this preposterous request,” it added.
Ms. Mufti, in the letter said, she hoped that the ECI will take the history of J&K into consideration before taking any decisions based on geography with such huge implications.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah reacted sharply to the development.
“The BJP and its subsidiary parties along with administration and the ECI are hatching conspiracy to reschedule polls, citing bad road condition on the Mughal road. Such steps will harm the electoral process in J&K. The ECI letter is surprising. There are those parties, like JKPC and BJP, which are not fighting elections there,” Mr. Abdullah said.
“If any political party or independent candidate will face any sort of hardship in campaigning, he/she should take route of Reasi. We will go for legal course of action if necessary,” he added.
NC candidate Mian Altaf Larvi, contesting from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat, has formally written a letter to the ECI. “This move to postpone the election is part of a deep-rooted conspiracy at the behest of the BJP and its allied parties in J&K, with the intention of disenfranchising a large section of the voters in this constituency,” the NC letter reads.
Mr. Larvi said he found “no difficulty in moving around my constituency, regardless of the status of the Mughal Road”. “A directive to the J&K administration should be issued by the Election Commission to ensure that the road is kept open at all times. I wish to place on record the unequivocal opposition of to any move to postpone the election,” the NC’s letter to the ECI read.
The Anantnag-Rajouri seat was carved out by the J&K Delimitation Commission, set up after the Centre ended J&K’s special constitutional status. It joined geographically two distinct regions, Kashmir valley’s Anantnag and the Pir Panjal Valley’s Rajouri and Poonch. The two regions are bifurcated by a mountain range. The move was criticised by the regional parties, the NC and the PDP, and alleged gerrymandering.
