India announces Kashmir polls after 10-year hiatus
India has announced plans to hold key regional elections in the disputed territory of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir from 18 September.
These polls are the first in nearly a decade – and the first since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the region’s special status in 2019.
The three-phased voting in the 90 constituencies will conclude on 1 October and counting is set for 4 October.
Some 8.7 million people, including 4.26 million women, will be eligible to vote, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said.
Assembly elections are normally held after five years, but political uncertainty had delayed the polls.
“After a long gap, elections are due and will be held in Jammu and Kashmir,” Mr Kumar told a news conference in Delhi on Friday.
He added that Kashmir had voted “for ballot over bullet” – as the region had witnessed a historic voter turnout of 58.46% in the recently-held parliamentary elections, a 30-point jump in voter turnout from the 2019 general election.
The commission later posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the long queues of voters during the general elections were “a testament to the will and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in writing their own destiny”.
Friday’s announcement comes just months after India’s Supreme Court upheld the government decision to scrap the constitution’s Article 370, which gave the region significant autonomy. The court also ordered that assembly elections be held by 30 September.
While taking away Kashmir’s special status, the government had also split the state of more than 12 million people into two federally administered territories – of Ladakh; and Jammu and Kashmir.
The revocation was one of the poll promises by Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 and the decision had made the party very unpopular in the state.
In March, the prime minister visited the region for the first time since 2019 and said he was “working hard to win your hearts”. He also announced projects worth 64bn rupees ($774m; £607m) to support local agriculture and tourism.
But analysts and local politicians say the anger against the BJP remains.
The Himalayan region was divided after India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947. The two nuclear-armed states both claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars and a limited conflict over it in the decades since.
An armed insurgency against Delhi’s rule in the Indian-administered region since 1989 has claimed tens of thousands of lives and there is a heavy military presence in the area.
Delhi accuses Islamabad of harbouring militants and disrupting peace in the region, a charge Pakistan denies.
Kashmir continues to be dogged by incidents of violence. A recent spurt in militant activity – which seems to have shifted from the Kashmir valley to the relatively calmer Jammu region – is a particular cause for concern.
In June, nine Hindu pilgrims were killed and dozens injured after militants opened fire on a bus in Reasi – where the bridge is located – in one of the deadliest militant attacks in recent years. There have been several other attacks on the army and civilians.
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