BJP govt delaying assembly polls in J&K to continue its proxy rule: AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday alleged the BJP government was delaying the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir on one pretext or another to deny people their democratic rights.

AAP leader Harsh Dev Singh said that while no initiative has been taken to install a popular government in Jammu and Kashmir, the administration seem to have been outsourced to bureaucrats, mostly from outside the Union Territory and having hardly any connect with the masses who are deprived of even basic amenities.

"The BJP-led government was inventing one excuse after another to deny people their democratic rights and to continue its proxy rule," he told reporters in the Chenani area.

Singh said the silence of the Centre and the Election Commission on Jammu and Kashmir while announcing the elections for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat amply revealed the government's intention.

Democracy has been reduced to a farce in Jammu and Kashmir with the political process having been rendered defunct and political parties discredited and discouraged and opposition parties suppressed, he alleged.

Singh, a former minister of the erstwhile state, said an elected government alone can deal with the obsequious challenges faced by Jammu and Kashmir.

Strongly condemning the escalation in militant activities, he called upon the Centre to hold the assembly polls at the earliest.