Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, May 13: The Government has decided to hold elections to both Urban Local Bodies and Panchayats this year anytime after the completion of annual Shri Amarnath ji pilgrimage on August 18. A final call on the two elections will be taken up shortly and an announcement to this effect was likely to be made during budget session of the Legislature in Srinagar.
Confirming this, official sources told the Excelsior that the Government was of the view that it wasn’t in the interest of the State to further delay elections to two major democratic institutions of the State to which former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was deeply committed.
However, despite the Government decision to go for elections to both Municipalities and Panchayats in later part of this year, the Panchayats would cease to exist on completion of their five years term on July 16. The Municipalities had completed their five years term long back in March 2010 and elections haven’t been held to them since then.
Though Law Department of the Government was studying direction and judgment of the division bench of the State High Court on holding Municipal elections within six months, sources said the Government was of the view that it would go for both the elections this year-one by one.
Most likely, the Municipal elections would be held first, followed by the Panchayat elections. Holding two elections together has been ruled out in view of security deployment as this would involve entire State in the elections like Parliament and Assembly polls, requiring large number of para-military and police personnel.
According to sources, the Government has decided that after completion of budget session of the Legislature on June 30, Anantnag by-election which was also scheduled to be held by June end to meet deadline of July 7 and annual Shri Amarnath ji pilgrimage from July 2 to August 18, both the elections would be held, one after the other, if the situation remained by and large peaceful.
While Municipal elections were likely to be held on party basis, the Panchayat elections might be held on non-party basis.
During Governor’s Rule in the State from January 8 to April 3, all arrangements had been finalized by the Election Department to hold Municipal elections in first week of May. Governor NN Vohra had amended legislation to designate Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shantmanu as the Election Commission for Municipal elections. The Election Department had published final rolls on March 30.
However, before the election schedule could be announced, the PDP-BJP revived the coalition Government on April 4 and no order was issued by the Government to the State Election Commission to hold ULB elections.
Panchayat elections were last held in April-May 2011 during NC-Congress regime after a gap of 37 years. Similarly, the Municipal elections were last held in the State in January-February 2005 after a gap of 26 years. The Municipalities had ceased to exist in March 2010 and since then process for holding elections to them was initiated several times but every time it had to be given for varied reasons.
There are a total of 78 Municipalities in Jammu and Kashmir including two Corporations (Jammu and Srinagar), six Councils (Kathua, Udhampur and Poonch in Jammu region and Anantnag, Sopore and Baramulla in Kashmir region). Rest 70 were the Municipal Committees.
Elections to the ULBs were last held in January-February 2005 and elected bodies had completed their five years term in March 2010. Since then, first the NC-Congress coalition Government and then PDP-BJP coalition Government made no efforts to hold elections to them.
The State Government has lost funds to the tune of several crores, which were to be directly given to the Municipalities, due to delay in holding elections to them. Similarly, delay in Panchayat polls, could also lead to delay in release of the funds, which are directly given by the Centre to rural bodies for raising infrastructure in the villages.
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