By going ahead with elections in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, despite a series of terror attacks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has conveyed a strong and categorical message that the democratic process cannot be derailed, come what may.
The Election Commission of India on Friday announced three-phase assembly elections for the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir from September 18 to October 1. The counting of votes will take place on October 4.
Immediately after the conclusion of the 2024 General Elections, terrorist attacks started taking place in the Jammu region of the union territory. The first in this series of terror attacks was carried out on a bus, carrying pilgrims to the holy shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi, the same day Prime Minister Modi took oath for the third consecutive term.
As it turns out, the terror attack was planned deliberately to coincide with the oath-taking of Prime Minister Modi. This attack was followed by some more attacks in both Jammu as well as Kashmir regions of the UT.
It is undoubtedly clear that Pakistan, its army and its intelligence services wanted to derail the democratic process in Jammu and Kashmir. The Government of India was bound by the Supreme Court of India's order that the elections should be conducted by September this year. The Government of India has stuck to the deadline with the elections getting completed on October 1, 2024, and the counting on October 4.
It will be almost ten years before the legislative assembly elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir. The last assembly elections were held in November-December 2014, which led to the formation of a post-poll coalition government of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the People’s Democratic Party, which collapsed in 2018. Since then the state/UT has been under President’s Rule.
On August 5, 2019, the BJP Government at the centre abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution of India. Along with that, the state was divided into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and a separate UT of Ladakh, consisting of Leh and Kargil regions.
These are going to be the first assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370. In the General Elections earlier this year, the UT witnessed overwhelming participation of people in the electoral process. More than that the elections went off quite peacefully. Unlike in the past, this time, there was no resistance against the elections, there were no boycott calls, no terrorist threats against participation in elections and no shutdown calls, no “civil curfew”, but long queues of voters outside the polling booths.
Obviously, this was not music to Pakistani ears, which has been continuously paddling a narrative that the Kashmiris were denied their democratic rights. The overwhelming participation in the General Elections was a snub to the Pakistani narrative. The people’s faith in the democratic process will be further affirmed during the assembly elections, which Pakistan has been trying to derail.
This will be a fresh beginning for the people of the erstwhile hill state, which is now a union territory.
The government of India has promised that statehood will be restored sooner than later. The Supreme Court of India has also ordered for the restoration of statehood, although there is no deadline set for that.
At the same time, holding peaceful elections will definitely be a challenge for the government and the security agencies. Pakistan army and the ISI will never like that democracy should be restored in Jammu and Kashmir. Because that defeats the basic premise on which they have been building up their anti-India narrative. Despite being defeated repeatedly and regularly, Pakistan and its army will never give up their pursuit of terror, even when they have to bite the dust mandatorily and compulsorily.
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