Elections Commission today during the press conference said that Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir would not be held along with the Lok Sabha elections. For this reason, Elections Commission is facing huge critisism in the Kashmir valley.
The state has been under Governor's Rule after the BJP ended the ruling alliance with Mehbooba Mufti's People's Democratic Party. With elections due by May, all political parties in the Kashmir Valley had appealed to the Commission to hold it along with the Lok Sabha polls. However, the Commission has been studying the feasibility of holding elections in a really sensitive phase the state is going through after the Pulwama Attack. Explaining the move, the Chief Election Commission Sunil Arora said keeping in view the constraints regarding the availability of central forces and the recent incidents of violence as well, the Commission said that the time is not right.
In a series of tweets, the state's former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah have questioned the NDA Government's talks regarding simultaneous polls. "Shows how badly the BJP & earlier the BJP-PDP mishandled J&K," his tweet read. In another tweet, he targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "With the amount of international attention elections in J&K attract I never thought PM Modi would be willing to confess his failure on a global stage but we all make mistakes & that was mine", he posted.