Governor Satya Pal Malik on Monday said the Election Commission of India will decide when the Assembly polls will take place in Jammu & Kashmir, even as he refused to disclose the stand taken by the state administration before the poll-body on the election.
Talking to mediapersons after taking guard of honour atcivil secretariat here, Malik said it was up to the ECI to decide on timing ofthe polls. “It is not my domain. Elections will take place but the ECI willdecide when they will take place,” he said, when asked about holding of statepolls.
To a question about the stand taken by the state governmentbefore the poll-body, the Governor refused to comment on it. “I cannot sayanything on it. The report given to the ECI is secret,” he said.
In its meeting with the ECI last month, the J&Kgovernment pushed for holding the state polls in November instead of June-July.
On the accusation that BJP district Vice-President forAnantnag, Ghulam Muhammad Mir was killed after withdrawal of his security, theGovernor said “it is wrong to link the withdrawal of security with the killingof political activists in Kashmir”.
“It is totally wrong to link these killings with securitywithdrawal because these persons were neither categorised nor their securitywas withdrawn,” he said, adding that the slain BJP activist was nevercategorized.
The Governor described the deceased as a very good,respected and senior Karikarta (worker) of BJP.
Malik added that government will look into whetherwithdrawal of security played any part in these killings.
“We will sit within next few days and discuss the (issue of)withdrawal of security. The Chief Secretary will inquire into whether securitywithdrawal played any part in these killings,” he said.
On Sunday, Governor had asked the Chief Secretary to get aninquiry conducted into the killing of political activists and directed him tolook into security lapses, if any, inthese incidents.
Malik said the state has witnessed enormous development inthe past seven months.
“The kind of development that has taken place in thelast seven months had not been done in years in the past. We have opened 62 newcolleges and upgraded 275 schools. We have also arranged Rs 7500 crore tocomplete languishing projects in the state,” he said.
The Governor said JehangirChowk flyover will be completed bythis month.”Roads have suffered damage during the winter inKashmir and we will soon undertake their repair,” he said, adding that therewas improvement in the electric supply during the last winter in Kashmir.