Panchayat elections in Kashmir postponed

By Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR, MARCH 3. In a major setback to the democratic process in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government has postponed the elections to the panchayats in three districts of Budgam, Pulwama and Ananatnag. In many other areas, people have disassociated themselves from the process even after being elected.

Highly placed official sources told The Hindu that the decision to postpone the much publicised elections in at least five blocks of the Budgam district and in all the constituencies of the twin districts of Anantnag and Pulwama were postponed for an indefinite period. Though no reason was given for the postponement of the elections scheduled towards the end of this month, no response from the public in certain areas in wake of increasing militancy related incidents is stated to be responsible for such a decision.

Even as the process has been through in most of the district in Jammu without much resistance and in the Baramulla and the Kupwara districts though on a low key, but the fresh spate of violence has forced political workers to be aloof from the process.

Many elected persons in the districts have disassociated themselves from the panchayat institutions. Not only the Hurriyat Conference but the militant organisations also issued threats to people asking them to disassociate from the process. On Thursday, two elected panchs were gunned down by militants in Rajouri.

In the Budgam district, not a single person turned up for filing nomination in Khag and Beerwah blocks for which the final date of filing nominations and the withdrawals expired on Friday. In the third block of Narbal for which the elections are to be held on March 15, 57 nominations were received. But interestingly all those whose nominations were filed have been publicly disowning the nominations through paid advertisements in the local dailies saying that they never filed any nomination. Sources said nominations were manipulated by the ruling National Conference (NC) and all these persons would be declared elected as sarpanchas and panchas.

For the two blocks of Khansahib and Budgam, the last date for filing nominations was today and it was not known as to how many persons filed nominations. In Charar-e- Sharief, Chadoora and B.K. Pora where elections were scheduled for March 21, were postponed indefinitely.

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