The first phase of the four-phase municipal polls in Jammu and Kashmir began on Monday amid heightened tensions due to the boycott call by the separatists and threats by militants.
The municipal polls in the state, which is currently under governor's rule, are being held after 13 years.
The first phase covers all municipal bodies of Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch; both committees of Ladakh; one each in Leh and Kargil and parts of Srinagar, Kupwara, Bandipora, Baramulla, Budgam, Kulgam and Anantnag in Kashmir. A total of 1,283 candidates are in the fray, of whom 78 have won unopposed.
The government has mobilised police, CRPF, and Army for the poll duties to handle any act of violence by militants or those supporting the boycott call.
The Centre has rushed an additional 400 companies of paramilitary forces to buttress the 200 companies of CRPF and SSB that were sent to Jammu and Kashmir for the security of the Amarnath Yatra.
The Centre, on the request of the state government, extended the stay of 200 companies sent for the security of the Amaranth Yatra till the end of the municipal and panchayat polls in December. This deployment brings the strength of paramilitary forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir to 60,000 personnel. Most are deployed in the troubled Kashmir region.
This is in addition to the 15,000 police personnel and the Army, which has been kept on standby to deal with any emergency.
Threats by militants have reduced the electoral contest to a mere formality as out of 624 wards in Kashmir, 215 have gone uncontested while 177 didn’t find any candidates.
In south Kashmir's Frisal in Kulgam and Khrew in Pulwama, no candidate filed nominations in each of the 13 wards in the two municipal committees.
At Beerwah in Budgam, only one candidate was in the fray in 13 wards.
Two major political parties—the NC and the PDP—and a few smaller parties have boycotted the elections over the issue of retaining Article-35A of the Constitution.
The NC and the PDP have said they were boycotting the civic polls because the Narendra Modi government has not come to the defence of Article-35A in the Supreme Court.
Article-35A, which protects the J&K State Subjects Law that bars outsiders from settling in the state, has been challenged in the Supreme Court by an NGO backed by RSS and others on the contention that it was added in the Constitution by a presidential order and not by an act of Parliament.
In the- build-up to the polls, many panchayat ghars and offices were set ablaze by unidentified men in south Kashmir.
Some of the candidates withdrew their nominations in video messages that were circulated on social media.
The militants have stepped up attacks on political workers to enforce their writ.
Two NC workers were killed and another injured when suspected militants fired at them at Karfali Mohalla in Srinagar earlier this month.
The incident created panic in the area, leading to the withdrawal of nominations by candidates including Muzamil Jaan, a woman, from Dalgate in Srinagar.
