Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir is set to hold its first local elections in ten years, the country’s election commission announced on Friday. The legislative assembly vote will be conducted from September 18 to October 1, with the results expected on October 4.
This marks the first regional election since December 2014 in the disputed Muslim-majority region, which has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan since both countries gained independence from British rule in 1947. The territory, claimed by both nations in its entirety, has witnessed decades of conflict, with an armed insurgency against Indian rule beginning in the late 1980s. The ongoing conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, amid regular calls for poll boycotts by separatist groups.
The last time local elections were held in the region was in 2014. However, the elected government stepped down in 2018 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew from a coalition with a regional party, leading to the imposition of federal rule.
In August 2019, in a significant and controversial move, Mr. Modi’s government revoked the region’s special autonomy, a status it had enjoyed for decades. The region was subsequently reorganized, with the state of Jammu and Kashmir being split into two federally administered territories: Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
“We have witnessed long queues of people in Jammu and Kashmir during the Lok Sabha polls, showing that they want to participate in the democratic process and choose ballots over bullets,” said Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar during a briefing on Friday.
A total of 8.7 million voters, comprising approximately 4.5 million men and 4.2 million women, will be eligible to cast their votes in these elections. The polls will be conducted in 90 assembly constituencies across three phases.
The elections follow a delimitation process, which involved redrawing the boundaries of assembly constituencies based on religious demographics in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Muslim-majority Kashmir.
While the new government will have authority over civic affairs and public administration within the region, law and order will remain under the control of Mr. Modi’s central government, as Jammu and Kashmir remains a federally administered territory.