By IRNA,
Srinagar, India : India’s Chief Election Commissioner wrapped up his crucial whirlwind tour of Kashmir Wednesday and the final decision about holding elections in the disputed state, which is in ferment with pro-independence sentiment running high, is likely to be announced any time soon.
Commissioner N Gopalaswami along with other commission members held a series of meetings with top security officials and local pro-India politicians during their two-day stay.
According to well placed sources top security officials during their briefing told the delegation that situation in Kashmir was ‘totally under control’.
The politicians however in their separate meetings gave a divided opinion with the leaders from national parties like Congress and BJP keen for timely polls while Kashmir based regional parties not so keen.
The two main pro-India parties the National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) asserting that considerable ground needed to be covered before the Kashmir electorate could be considered amenable to polls.
Their predicament steps mainly from the intensely surly public mood towards mainstream parties and their affairs triggered by the decision to allot forest land to a Hindu Shrine Board.
The agitation over the land transfer in Kashmir, which brought down the Congress-PDP coalition government in the state in July, has speedily assumed the broader context of the political future of the state which is claimed by both India and Pakistan in its entirety.
A series of massive protest demonstrations, led by the pro-independence leadership, witnessed in the valley in the past months, give stark grounds to infer that right now elections to vote a state government into power are the least of the priorities of the Kashmiri people.
The sentiment intensely felt on the streets echoes with the argument of the pro-independence leadership that elections (under Indian constitution) are not an answer to the more pressing task of addressing the Kashmir dispute.
Though pro-freedom groups have been calling for an election boycott ever since poll bells started ringing, the mood in the streets has swung sharply in their favour.
With the agitation, the pro-independence groups, like the Hurriyat Conference, have gained an unparalleled hold over the masses in Kashmir valley and Muslim majority areas elsewhere in the state, to the extent that authorities had to take recourse of a massive military exercise this Sunday to clamp down on all of Kashmir to foil a march to city centre planned by the Hurriyat backed Kashmir Coordination Committee, an amalgam of various groups representing the civil society including traders, lawyers and doctors.
While PDP chief, Mahbooba Mufti told the EC that the political affairs committee of her party would take up the final decision if the Commission decided to conduct polls when they are due by the year end, her rival from the National Conference, Omar Abdullah, said that his party would participate in elections when held “because it believed in democracy.”
The state is under governor’s rule since July 11, when the previous Congress-led coalition government was toppled after PDP withdrew support to chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad over the bitter land row.
“The governor’s rule is the worst period of any democracy but people must participate in the election process, and unless that happens, elections would be meaningless,” NC’s Omar Abdullah said after the meeting.
Asked if his party would participate in the polls if held sooner, Abdullah said: “The question is not whether or not the National Conference takes part in the elections, the question is whether or not the people here are ready for the elections?
Alleging that the New Delhi had missed the opportunity for dialogue process when the Kashmir valley witnessed peaceful processions for the first time in two decades, the National Conference said there could be no mass participation in the Assembly elections if held without addressing some basic issues.
NC said under the circumstances no credible elections were possible in the state, particularly in the Kashmir valley where people are alienated.
However, sources said NC delegation informed the EC that despite all this the party was ready to participate in the elections when held, since ‘it was a firm believer in democratic process’.
Mufti on the other hand said, “We have clearly expressed the view that the time is not conducive for holding elections unless the wounds of the people heal.”
“More than elections, what we need right now is confidence building among the people.
“We cannot expect mass participation of people in the process,” another PDP leader said, adding that the elections, if held, could never be credible.
“There was already political instability in the state, but the recent crisis in the valley and Jammu have added to the communal divide,” he said.
Communist leader Muhammad Yusuf Tarigami said: “The CPI-M does not believe in shying away from the electoral process, but unfortunately the political atmosphere in the state has been vitiated.
“I have told the EC that the time is not ripe for holding elections by November this year. We must wait for a little longer.” Bhim Singh, the president of the Panthers Party, however, advocated timely elections as the Congress leader Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed said: “We have decided to go along with the decision taken by the EC.”
With security agencies less worried about law and order situation following announcement by the militants groups that they will take a backstage to let ongoing peaceful public movement take its course, they gave a green signal to EC for polls.
But it is the very real prospect of an embarrassingly low turnout in Kashmir that ought to be exercising minds in New Delhi, as it would run out of compelling evidence to proffer to the world that the tide in Kashmir had finally turned in its favour, opine observers here.
The last assembly elections, which ousted the NC, and was largely validated by the world community, had given India a much-needed breather, even a semblance of moral standing, in Kashmir, but all of that could be wiped off if Kashmiris decide to stay away from the forthcoming polls en masse.
But the government of India has another, equally urgent, concern in holding elections in the state in time: Jammu and Kashmir was put under governor’s rule in July after the state assembly was dissolved following the collapse of the coalition government.
As per norms, elections are to be held by January 10, and having a civilian government in office before the expiry of governor’s rule is a constitutional requirement.
But constitutional niceties apart, the centre would rather have a Kashmiri face presiding over, and acting as a front for, New Delhi’s policies in Kashmir, lending much-needed legitimacy to its hold over the region.