Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday said it is not in favour of delaying assembly elections in the state, but hastened to add that some political parties want polls to be conducted immediately, which is not possible.
“We are not in favour of deferring or delaying the assemblyelections. Had assembly polls been held together with Parliamentary elections,it will have favoured our party,” BJP senior leader Ashok Koul told KashmirNews Service (KNS).
“However, some parties demand holding of assembly electionsimmediately (which) is not possible because Gujjar and Bakerwal, which areabout 30 lakh voters are in migration phase these days.
“We can’t deprive them of their voting rights. So once theyreturn from grazing their stock from the hills, assembly polls can be held,”Koul said.
Over the prevailing security situation in the Valley, Koulsaid that out of 10 districts of Kashmir “only 3 districts are witnessingvolatile situation.”
“In rest of thedistricts of Kashmir, situation has improved and the centre government willdeal with the situation to bring peace in these three districts,” he said.
On the surrender of his security on protest, the BJP leadersaid that he surrendered his security to protest the “wrong informationprovided by police to Governor.”
“Some officials in Police had given wrong information toGovernor about the security of slain BJP member Gul Mir of Anantnag. I wrote tothe Governor to clarify him about the security of late Mir. Governor hasassured that security will be provided to all those political activists afterproper verification by police,” he said.
Asked that opposition parties accuse BJP of polarisingvoters and threatening minorities, he said that Congress is “polarising votersin the country and did recently in Jammu and Kashmir Parliamentary polls”.
The BJP leader lashed out at the Congress for not taking anyaction against its leader Asgar Ali Karbalaie in Kargil who contested electionsagainst the Congress official candidate.