National Conference and a few smaller mainstream political parties Thursday stayed away from meeting three “special observers” appointed by the election commission of India (ECI) to “assess the ground situation” in Jammu and Kashmir for the state assembly elections, even as the PDP, Congress and Peoples Conference demanded holding of the electoral exercise “without any delay”.
The three special observers, who began their two-day visitto the state, include former IAS officers Vinod Zutshi and Noor Muhammad, andformer IPS officer, A S Gill.
The team arrived in Srinagar this morning to meet politicalparties and officials from the civil and police administrations, days after theECI said it won’t hold the assembly polls in the state alongside the generalelections “due to security concerns”.
In an unexpected move, the National Conference decidedagainst meeting the observers, saying the party has “nothing more to add” toits demand of having the simultaneous elections in the state.
“Our demand of having the simultaneous assembly and LokSabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir in our earlier meetings with the EC teamremains as it is. We have, therefore, nothing more to add,” a NationalConference spokesman said.
The party’s general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar, who hadmet the election commission of India (ECI) team last week said that thepostponement of assembly polls can have “serious ramifications” across thestate.
“Those who took this incoherent decision must be up to somemischief, otherwise there is no sound reason for not conducting thesimultaneous elections. If the situation is conducive for the parliamentelections, what stops them from conducting the assembly elections at the sametime?” he asked.
The CPI (M), which was invited to meet the observers,decided against meeting them in protest against delay in holding the assemblypolls in the state.
Interestingly, PDF chairman Hakeem Muhammad Yasin andDemocratic Party Nationalist chairman Ghulam Hassan Mir also did not meet theobservers. The duo had met the ECI delegation on March 4.
In a joint statement, Hakim, Tarigami and Yasin said theydidn’t meet the “special observers” because “we have already put forth ourposition about holding the assembly polls in the state before the full electioncommission last week. There is nothing new to say about the issue.”
They said the uncertainty in the state is “deepeningday-by-day and dissatisfaction is increasing in absence of an electedgovernment in the state”.
“We reiterate our consistent demand that the only effectiveresponse to this situation would have been to hold the elections to theassembly and Lok Sabha simultaneously,” they said.
On the other hand, the Congress and Peoples Democratic Partydemanded that the state polls be held immediately.
“We requested the observers that the polls should beannounced immediately,” senior Congress leader Taj Mohiuddin told GreaterKashmir.
“We also suggested to the committee that they should lookinto feasibility of holding the assembly polls concurrently with the lastphases of parliamentary polls.”
Taj said there is no justification for delaying the assemblypolls when the parliamentary polls have been announced.
PDP leader Muhammad Ashraf Mir said they urged the observersthat the state elections should be held as soon as possible.
“We told the committee that people of Jammu and Kashmir aredisappointed over non-holding of the assembly polls,” he said, adding thatdelaying the polls is “murder and subversion of democracy”.
Peoples Conference vice-president Abdul Gani Vakil said thepolls should be announced to “remove ambiguity”.
“We stressed upon them to restore the legitimacy of theassembly, which solely lies in higher participation (of people),” he said.
He said the “era of beneficiaries of boycott should bebrought to an end. The assembly cannot be made a selected institution for aselected few”.
Vakil said the party demanded “equal security” to all thecontesting candidates.
The J&K BJP also pitched for early assembly polls duringtheir meeting with the observers.