On a day that the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) by September 30 next year, there was no word on the third tier of governance in the Union Territory. More than 700 panchayats comprising over 12,000 seats remain vacant since December 2018 in the Union Territory, the last time elections were held for the village bodies. The term of the panchayats ends on January 9, 2024.
It has been over nine years since the last Assembly election was held in J&K and the former State is under Central rule since June 2018 when the alliance between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) collapsed. The government has so far remained evasive on the commitment to conduct the election despite claims that terror incidents have come down in J&K in the past four years.
After the special status of J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution was struck down by the Parliament in August 2019, the former State was bifurcated and downgraded into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — the latter without a legislative Assembly. Home Minister Amit Shah said that a call on restoring the statehood of J&K will be taken after conducting the Assembly election in the UT.
