National Conference and PDP on the same page on Article 35-A, boycott Jammu and Kashmir local body polls

For the first time in the past three decades of political turmoil in Kashmir, both mainstream political parties as well as the separatist groups are calling for a boycott of elections Srinagar: For the first time in the past three decades of political turmoil in Kashmir, both mainstream political parties as well as the separatist groups are calling for a boycott of elections. PDP chief and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said that the manner in which the Central government and the state government presented its argument in the apex court on 31 August hearing “smells like a conspiracy to target the identity” of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After the National Conference decided to boycott the polls, the decision of the PDP to boycott the upcoming polls will erode the credibility of the electoral process and further deepen the political uncertainty in the state that was brought under Governor’s Rule after the fall of the PDP-BJP coalition government earlier this year. National Conference president, Farooq Abdullah said that it is not easy for any party, whose very existence depends on participation in a democratic process, to call for a boycott, but “the situation and the government’s response to the pleas in apex court to the Article 35-A” of the Constitution, which is facing a legal challenge, has “forced the core group” of his party to come to the boycott decision. While the suspicion that the law may be modified or entirely removed was confirmed after Mehta told the Supreme Court that there was “no doubt that the provision is discriminatory against women”, it has pushed the mainstream political parties, who have stood for democracy and rule of law in the past three decades of turmoil, into a corner.