Srinagar: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has said that the Election Commission of India will decide the dates about assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
“…elections will not happen in India is not possible. Elections have to happen. When the J&K Reorganisation Act was passed in Parliament, the Home Minister had said three specific things: i) First, delimitation. People often express it in political terms. But the fact is elections cannot happen without delimitation. Who would decide the boundary? The J&K government cannot. And it is a long process, requiring stakeholder consultations,” he said in an interview with newspaper, The Indian Express.
“The Justice Ranjana Desai-led Delimitation Commission came to J&K thrice. Political parties also met the Commission in Delhi. Finally, the report is in. ii) Assembly elections then,” he said, adding, “The Election Commission is visiting the UT now. When the Prime Minister was here, he also said elections would happen at the earliest. The Election Commission will decide the dates. There should be no doubt about elections. iii) Statehood at appropriate time.”
He said Kashmir has remained largely incident-free, Jammu has emerged as the area of concern.
“As far as security is concerned, the situation is much better. Yes, in the last year to year-and-a-half, there have been some incidents in Jammu. But we have a strategy in place to tackle this,” he said, adding, “However, if you look at overall numbers such as killings of civilians, or that of security personnel, there has been a sharp drop.”
In Kashmir division particularly, almost all top militant commanders have been eliminated by the security forces, he said. “Recruitment (of local militants) is also at its lowest levels. The Modi government’s zero tolerance policy is in place,” he said, adding, “Our neighbour is unable to digest the peace, progress and development, and also the successful conduct of the Lok Sabha elections. It has its own set of internal problems too. Hence, it is actively trying to disturb the Jammu region in the last 12-18 months…trained militants are being sent. A few regrettable incidents have happened in the last 2-3 months.”
He said it is true that due to normalcy over a long period of time, the deployment of Army, police or the CRPF, had reduced in strategic positions. “But I don’t think it is because of moving troops from Jammu to Ladakh. Troops were moved because of the prevalence of peace in Jammu,” he said, adding, “At the highest level, in meetings chaired by the Home Minister, it has been decided to expedite the deployment of additional police, CRPF and Army forces in appropriate positions.”

KR Desk