India - 7 phase J&K polls from Nov 17

J.Balaji

NEW DELHI: Assembly elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir in seven phases from November 17 to December 24. The counting of votes will be on December 28 and the election process will be completed by December 31.

The State has 87 Assembly constituencies, including seven reserved for Scheduled Castes. Altogether 65,38,111 electors are eligible to exercise their franchise through 8,109 polling stations to be set up in various areas of the State, including in snow-clad Leh and Kargil regions. The notification for the first phase will be issued on October 24.

Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, announcing the Election Commission’s decision to the media on Sunday, said that in the first phase, 10 Assembly constituencies would go to the polls. In the second phase on November 23, six constituencies will have elections. It will be five constituencies in the third phase on November 30; 18 in the fourth phase on December 7; 11 in the fifth phase on December 13; 16 in the sixth phase on December 17. In the seventh and last phase, the highest number of Assembly constituencies (21) will witness elections on December 24.

During the first phase, Bandipora, Leh, Kargil and Poonch districts will go to the polls. It will be Ganderbal and Rajouri districts in the second phase; Kupwara in the third; Baramulla, Budgam, Reasi and Udhampur districts in the fourth phase; Pulwama, Shopian and Kathua in the fifth; Kulgam, Anantnag, Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban in the sixth; and Srinagar, Samba and Jammu districts in the seventh phase.

The Hurriyat Conference and other separatist outfits said on Sunday that they would boycott the Assembly elections.

“The Hurriyat has nothing to do with this meaningless exercise and would ask the people to stay away from it as well,” Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the separatist amalgam’s moderate faction, said.

Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Mohammad Yaseen Malik said his group would canvass actively for a poll boycott. “Elections are not a solution to the issue... they have failed in the past and will fail in the future as well.”