SRINAGAR: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said the Centre nominating five members to the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly after holding elections is a “blatant subversion of democratic principles”.

She was responding to a report in the English daily ‘The Hindu’, which said that the Ministry of Home Affairs has informed the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court that the lieutenant governor can nominate five MLAs to the Legislative Assembly without the aid and advice of the elected government.

“GOI’s decision to nominate 5 MLAs in J&K after holding elections is a blatant subversion of democratic principles. Nowhere else in the country does the Centre handpick legislators to override the public mandate. In India’s only Muslim-majority region, long marred by conflict, this move feels less like governance and more like control,” Mufti said in a post on X.