Sayeed meets PM; urges him to ensure free, fair polls in J-K

Former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urged him to ensure free and fair elections in the state saying this was not done during 2008.
"While (former Prime Minister) Atal Behari Vajpayee had ensured that his commitment to hold free and fair elections in 2002 was fulfilled, the same could unfortunately not be said about the 2008 elections when manipulations in many constituencies affected the results and clouded the credibility of electoral process once again," a PDP statement quoted him as saying after the meeting.
Sayeed said it was important that the electoral process in the state not only remained clean and unbiased but that it should look so as well.

He alleged that the "managed results" in those elections had impacted the situation adversely and ever since the present government took office, all the immense investment in peace and development in the state made by Singh himself had almost evaporated.
He urged the Prime Minister to ensure free and fair elections, whenever these are held, as a primary requisite for taking forward the peace process as restoration of faith in democratic institutions was essential for any initiatives on internal front to succeed.
Sayeed said it was important to ensure a full-fledged and multi-tier democratic system in place in the state from the village to state level to empower the people in shaping their destinies.

"Unfortunately that was not happening in absence of the empowerment of these institutions," he said.