Committed to conducting polls in J&K at the earliest: CEC Rajiv Kumar

Rajiv Kumar says elections won't be postponed on account of terror attacks

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on Friday said the Election Commission (EC) is committed to conducting Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), and that it will not postpone the elections on account of terror attacks, any kind of violence and nefarious designs of forces that do not want polls to be held in the Union Territory (UT).

Addressing a press conference in Jammu on the third day of the three Election Commissioners’ three-day visit to J&K, Kumar said the EC would conduct polls in the UT at the earliest and not allow any internal or external forces to derail the electoral process. He said the administration was capable of meeting security challenges and added that the time was “ripe” for conducting Assembly elections as the EC was keen to build on the success of holding the Lok Sabha polls, which saw record turnouts in the UT.

The three Election Commissioners were visiting the UT to review poll preparedness. Assembly polls were last held in J&K in 2014.

To a question that pointed to the Supreme Court’s directions to the Centre to conclude the election process by September 30 this year, Kumar said the EC will heed the deadline.

Assembly polls were due to be held in early 2019 following the dissolution of the legislative body of the erstwhile state in 2018. However, after the bifurcation of J&K into UTs of J&K and Ladakh in August 2019, the Assembly polls could not be held because the delimitation exercise was incomplete. The delimitation process was eventually completed in December 2022. Also, the polls had to wait for the passage of the J&K Reorganisation Act, which was done in December 2023, EC officials said.

Kumar said the EC will announce the poll schedule once the final electoral rolls are released on August 20 and security assessment is completed after they return to Delhi.

The EC also released data on the number of electors in J&K, which it said was 8.709 million, with 76,902 first-time voters. The poll panel said there will be 11,838 polling stations, including 26 polling stations for Kashmiri migrants living in camps in Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi.

VITAL STATS

Total number of districts: 20

Total seats: 90 (General-74, SC-9, ST-7)

Total electors: 8.709 million (Males-4.446 mn, Females 4.262 mn)

First-time voters: 76,092

Total number of polling stations: 11,838 (Urban-2,332, Rural-9,508)

Total number of special polling stations: 26 (in Delhi, Jammu and Udhampur)

Source: EC