Come September, first assembly poll for Jammu & Kashmir as UT
Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases — September 18, 25 and October 1, the Election Commission (EC) of India announced on Friday.
The Supreme Court had set a deadline of September 30 for polls to be held in Jammu and Kashmir. The chief election commissioner (CEC) cited weather conditions and the Amarnath yatra as factors that had a bearing on the poll calendar.
Haryana will go to polls on October 1, coinciding with the last day of the Jammu and Kashmir election. Counting of votes for both Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir will be on October 4.
Polls to Maharashtra and Jharkhand have been decoupled from this schedule, mainly due to security arrangements for the Jammu and Kashmir election, besides floods delaying electoral work at the block level, the poll panel indicated.
A separate calendar is likely to be announced for the two states over the coming days.
Also Read: Jammu & Kashmir polls to begin from southern Kashmir despite rise in terror
This will be the first assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, when the state became a Union Territory. That also involved the separation of Ladakh, which was turned into a separate Union Territory.
This is also the first assembly poll in Jammu and Kashmir after the 2021 delimitation of constituencies, an exercise that had been conducted after three decades. The UT last held assembly elections in 2014 and has been under President's rule since December 19, 2018.
Apart from the deployment of security forces, the poll panel
