Article 35A row: PDP to boycott panchayat, municipal polls

The PDP, which till recently was an ally of the BJP, Monday announced it will boycott forthcoming urban local body and panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir, saying the security situation was not conducive for holding these polls. Reading from the resolution, she said the PDP has noted with concern that the situation created by linking local body elections to the case pending in the Supreme Court regarding Article 35A has led to “serious apprehensions” in the minds of people who genuinely see it as an “assault” on the special constitutional provisions of the state. The former chief minister, whose tenure ended abruptly in June this year after the BJP pulled out of the alliance, said her party urges the government to review its decision to hold local body elections "against the will of people" and instead focus on confidence building measures, so that the state "is assured of the inviolability of the constitutional guarantees that make it a special part of the Union of India". In December last year, she had supported the idea of holding local body polls, saying "elections to panchayats and urban local bodies will empower these institutions to not only have democratic powers but financial resources as well to undertake developmental activities at the grassroots level". The NC, the state's oldest political party, had on September 5 decided to stay away from panchayat and urban local body elections, saying the decision to hold the polls was taken in a "hurried" manner without taking into considerations the prevailing situation "created by the powers that be, by unnecessarily fiddling with Article 35-A".