JK News Today
Jammu, January 14:
A team of Election Commission of India will soon visit Jammu and Kashmir to make its own assessment of the situation before deciding on the holding of Parliamentary and Assembly polls simultaneously or separately , according to highly placed sources in the ECI.
The sources said that the ECI doesn’t decide on the elections in Jammu and Kashmir merely on the feedback of the state government . “ It has its own independent mechanism of making assessment in J&K before taking a call on elections ,” said a highly placed source who recalled that how the ECI had taken its own decision to hold the Assembly polls in 2016 despite protestations by the Omar Abdullah government that had voiced its reservations against the backdrop of the devastating floods that had hit Kashmir .
“ The team will visit J&K soon,” the sources said , though they have enough of the feedback from the state government that was represented by Chief Secretary BVR Sumbramnhym and Director General of Police Dilbag Singh.
This team will give its own feedback to the ECI and thereafter it will take a decision on the poll schedule .
Meanwhile , the Ministry of Home Affairs is in touch with the ECI. The risk factors involved in the conduct of polls have been discussed in detail and it has been concluded that the risk factors don’t lessen if the polls are held simultaneously or separately. “ The risk factor remains the same.,” the ECI has been told .
In Jammu and Kashmir , the parliamentary elections are to be held with the rest of the country, but the election to the state Assembly too have been necessitated due to the dissolution of the Assembly on November 21 last year.
