Days after announcing that the National Conference would boycott the upcoming local body polls in Jammu and Kashmir on the issue of protecting Article 35A, party president Farooq Abdullah on Saturday warned his party would not participate in the coming Lok Sabha and next Assembly elections.
Article 35A of the Constitution bars non-natives from owning property in Jammu and Kashmir or standing for public office. The Supreme Court had been hearing petitions calling for the scrapping of Article 35A on the grounds that it is discriminatory.
Abdullah said on Saturday that his party would boycott the Lok Sabha polls, due next year, and the next Assembly polls, due by late 2020, if the Centre does not make its stand on Articles 35A and 370 clear. Article 370 of the Constitution confers special rights to Jammu and Kashmir, including the right to have its own constitution. Repeal of Article 370 has been a key demand of the BJP for several years.
Abdullah said National Security Adviser Ajit Doval had pushed “another dagger” into the body of Kashmir by saying the separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was an “aberration”.
”I want to tell Doval and the present government from this graveyard today that if the separate constitution is wrong, then the accession of Kashmir is also wrong,” Abdullah argued.
The decision to boycott the local body polls by a major political party has come amid a threat by militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen that it will not spare those who will contest the elections. Hizbul operational commander Reyaz Naikoo, in a message, warned that those intending to contest the panchayat polls should keep their shrouds ready. He also warned that his group had stocked acid to punish those planning to stand in elections.
The four-phase municipal elections will be held from October 1-5. The panchayat elections will be held in eight phases from November 8 to December 4.
Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, representing the state government, told the Supreme Court on August 31 that any debate on Article 35A at this juncture would have an impact on the law and order situation in the Kashmir valley where elections to over 4,500 posts of sarpanch and to 1,145 wards are scheduled. He said if these elections do not take place, then a financial grant of Rs 4,335 crore would lapse.
The Supreme Court had put off hearings on the Article 35A issue till January 2019 on the grounds that Jammu and Kashmir would be seeing panchayat elections in the coming months. The Article 35A issue has triggered massive protests in Jammu and Kashmir with support from the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party, while separatist shutdowns crippled life in the Kashmir region.
