Jammu & Kashmir likely to hold polls later this year

CHANDIGARH, India

The Election Commission of India said Tuesday that it will announce the dates for legislative elections in Jammu and Kashmir after the annual Hindu pilgrimage of Amarnath Yatra concludes in August.

“The Election Commission, under Article 324 of the Constitution and other extant laws/rules etc., has unanimously decided that holding of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir shall be considered later this year. The Commission will keep on regularly and on a real-time basis monitoring the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, taking inputs from all necessary quarters and after the conclusion of Amarnath Yatra will announce the election schedule for the conduct of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir,” it said in a statement.

Jammu and Kashmir is currently under presidential rule, under which the central government directly rules the state.

The region has not had an elected government since June 2018, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party pulled out of an alliance with the local People’s Democratic Party.

Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Indian and Pakistani troops have also fought intermittently since 1984 in the Siachen Glacier region in northern Kashmir. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.

Thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989, according to several human rights organizations.