PDP chief’s statement comes hours after the National Conference announced decision to boycott elections until Centre clarifies its stance on the issue.
New Delhi: Former chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti Wednesday said clubbing the contentious issue of Article 35A with the upcoming panchayat and urban local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir was a “disastrous idea” by the Central government.
Mufti made the statement hours after National Conference (NC) announced its decision to boycott the elections until the Centre clarified its stance on the issue.
“Mixing Article 35A with the panchayat polls and urban local body elections was a disastrous idea on behalf of the central government representative in the Supreme Court. It has further complicated the situation,” Mufti told ThePrint.
Article 35A grants the Jammu & Kashmir legislature the power to define the state’s permanent residents.
Also read: BJP wants Article 35A scrapped, but its Jammu MLA is sending out a warning
The Supreme Court last week adjourned the hearing of a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35A till January next year. The Centre and state government sought the adjournment in view of the local elections.
Since June, Jammu and Kashmir has been under Governor’s rule after the BJP withdrew from the coalition with the PDP.
Mufti said she will consult her party colleagues to decide the way forward.
‘Clarify stand’
On Wednesday, NC president and Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah chaired a party meeting, announcing boycott of the panchayat and the local urban body election process scheduled to begin on 1 October.
“The core group (of NC) unanimously decided that the National Conference will not participate in these elections unless and until the government of India and the state government clarify their positions in this regard and take effective steps for protection of Article 35A in and outside the courts,” said Abdullah.
He added the decision of the state administration to hold urban local body polls and panchayat elections was taken in a “hurried manner”, without taking into consideration the prevailing situation “created by the powers that be by unnecessarily fiddling with Article 35A”.
The urban civic body polls have not been held in the last eight years, while the panchayat elections were last conducted in 2011.
All-party meet
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the only party in the state that backs panchayat elections at this time. The party stood for conducting the elections even when Mufti called for an all-party meeting during the PDP-BJP coalition she led earlier. The other two parties — NC and PDP — opposed holding the polls then, raising security concerns and highlighting the deteriorating situation in south Kashmir.
“In my government, I had called an all-party meeting to discuss these elections and majority of the parties opposed holding of elections at that time. We expected that the governor too would have called an all-party meet where everyone would put forward their point of view,” said Mufti.
“We are still hopeful about that meet and would share our opinion with all the parties so that a consensus is built,” she added.
The State Administrative Council (SAC), headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik, announced last week that the elections to municipal bodies in the state will be conducted in four phases between 1 and 5 October.
Also read: What is Article 35A and why J&K is up in arms against attempts to ‘fiddle’ with it
The Joint Resistance Leadership, an alliance of separatist groups in Kashmir, Monday announced a boycott of these polls.