New Delhi: Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are likely to be held in October along with polls in Jharkhand, Haryana and Maharashtra, sources in the government said.
The Election Commission (EC) will hold a meeting with all stakeholders in the state, including its chief secretary and director general of police, to take a final call after the conclusion of the Amarnath Yatra on 15 August.
“The meeting will probably be scheduled mid-August. The EC has already been carrying out reviews of the state on a regular basis,” said a government official on condition of anonymity.
Elections in J&K have been delayed since the state failed to comply with the Supreme Court rule of reinstating a House within six months of its dissolution. It has been under President’s Rule since December last year.
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Additional troops’ deployment
At a meeting of state unit leaders held in Delhi Tuesday, BJP working president J.P. Nadda had asked members to start preparing for polls in the Valley. Subsequently, party leaders said that the BJP was ready to hold assembly elections in the state as and when the EC decides.
This development comes at a time when the Union home ministry deployed 100 additional companies of paramilitary personnel in the state last week, leading to much speculation and apprehension from various quarters about abrogation of its special status.
But a CRPF officer, who did not wish to be named, said, “Assembly elections in the state have been postponed for many months now. It is likely that the government does not want to take any chance and has hence deployed additional troops prior to the polls.”
Meanwhile, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shailendra Kumar had released a notice Wednesday to announce a meeting with all deputy commissioners on 2 August. This had further led people to assume that elections will soon be held in the state.
However, speaking to ThePrint, CEO Kumar said this notification was only “routine,” and had nothing to do with state elections.
“The meeting is being convened in order to carry out the SSR (Special Summary Roll) revision, which is a routine exercise and takes place every year, irrespective of elections,” he said.
“The exercise will begin on 1 September and end on 25 January 2020. It has nothing to do with elections. Till the time we do not get directions from the EC, everything else is just speculation. The EC will take a call in a few weeks,” he further said.
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