Stopping short of demanding postponement of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah gave clear indications that he did not favour the State going to the polls in December 2014-January 2015. The six-year term of the 87-member Assembly ends on January 19, 2015.
The unprecedented floods early this month have thrown the government out of gear and disrupted normal life in large parts of the State. Restoration work will take “not days or weeks, but months,” the Chief Minister said. “I would be amazed if we are not still doing a large part of this work in the spring of next year.”
“It is for the Election Commission of India to gauge whether it is the appropriate time to hold the elections or not,” Mr. Abdullah told The Hindu.
“It would seem like I am power hungry. I am not going to make any formal recommendation for delaying the elections for the simple reason that I don’t want anybody to think that I want to continue to sit in this chair,” the Chief Minister said.
“If the opinion of the National Conference as a political party is sought, it will give its opinion but otherwise formally, the EC doesn’t ask me.”
Mr. Abdullah said he was sure that consultations on the dates of elections must be already going on with stakeholders, including the Intelligence agencies and the Union Home Ministry.
The election process in the State takes nearly two months, as it is usually spread over six to eight phases. If the State were to elect a new Assembly before the term of the current one ends, the process will have to start by mid-November.
While postponing the Gujarat election in 2002, the ECI had interpreted its mandate under Article 324 of the Constitution to conduct free and fair elections to include within its ambit the powers to decide on the timing of the elections without reference to the date when the previous Assembly ceased to exist.
The Chief Minister said the public relations overdrive of the Army that carried out substantial relief and rescue operations during the floods may have had unintended consequences.
