Updated: November 19, 2020 6:52:55 am
Candidates for the District Development Council vote remain under tight security in a building in Pampore. Quick
With only nine days to go District Development Council (DDC) to begin in Jammu and Kashmir, the Center has issued orders to relocate an additional 25,000 security personnel to the Union Territory. In the Valley, J&K Police remove candidates to ‘grouped accommodations’ as soon as they present nomination papers due to a perceived threat to their lives.
Senior administration officials argued that only those seeking protection were housed in designated safe spaces. But the candidates and political parties The Indian Express spoke with said they were confined to these spaces against their wishes and that this had severely restricted their movement and campaigning ability.
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The additional troops drawn from CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP and SSB were necessary given the security situation in the Union Territory and concerns that there may be attempts to disrupt the electoral process, sources in New Delhi said.
The candidates and the main parties, however, blamed the Center and questioned the administration for keeping them in ‘group quarters’ and not letting them out. For example, two candidates for the Budgam District National Conference, Mohammad Ashraf Lone and Rayees Mattoo, who presented their nomination in the Beerwah and Khag areas respectively, said they could not campaign and were accommodated in hotels in Srinagar despite of his lack of will.
The Indian Express visited the EDI Complex in Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar city. He found many party candidates housed there, with plainclothes and uniformed police personnel manning the doors. Those inside have strict orders not to venture out; one complained that he was not allowed to attend a party meeting the day before.
Wednesday night Omar Abdullah, Vice President of the National Conference, questioned this, and said in a tweet: “What kinds of elections are taking place at J&K where candidates are prevented from campaigning? Is this the safe and terror-free J&K the interior minister was tweeting about yesterday?
It is not only about candidates from the seven parties that are part of the Popular Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD); BJP candidates have also been housed in these “safe places.” When contacted, BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said: “Almost all of our candidates are in safe places.”
The signatories to the Gupkar Declaration have come together as the ‘People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration’ to challenge the changes introduced at J&K on August 5, 2019. (Photo Express)
A senior government official told The Indian Express: “We cannot insure everyone. So, with this in mind, those who want to be in safe places will be transferred. They will be allowed to campaign, but keeping the candidates safe is our priority. “The official said the decision is based on the” collective assessment of the district administration and the police. “
Beerwah of North Carolina candidate Rayees Mattoo said he filled out the nomination form on November 16 and was sent to a hotel in Srinagar the same day with a police guard who had instructions not to let him out. “I am a candidate who is not allowed to campaign; How is this a democracy? “he said. His constituency is approximately 55 kilometers from the hotel.
Candidate Khag Ashraf Lone said that police sometimes send a vehicle and ask all candidates in one location to travel to their constituencies in a vehicle and report at 4pm. “If they send me a vehicle at 12 noon or 1 in the afternoon, how do I go to 40 villages in my constituency and return at 4 in the afternoon? This also after choosing other candidates from different areas. “
Elections in the Beerwah and Khag areas are scheduled for December 1. The candidates said they were not allowed to campaign even in their own vehicles. “Not only our voters, this also worries our families, because they fear that we have been arrested,” said Mattoo.
A Pulwama PPD candidate, who did not want to be named, said he was asked to come to the police station from where he was taken to the EDI building. “They didn’t let me bring money or a change of clothes. There is hardly a heating fix and our families are concerned, ”he said.
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An independent Hiller candidate in Anantnag had similar concerns. Altaf Ahmad Rather, who has been staying at a hotel in the Pahalgam area, said: “From the moment I submitted my application, security officers took me to a police station and then to a hotel. I have been here since then with at least 20 other candidates from different parties. “
Altaf Rather says that she will not be allowed to visit her constituency and says that “people in my area insisted that I participate and that is why I filled out the form. He would not be afraid to campaign among them. But for now, that doesn’t seem possible. “
In his tweet, Omar also said: “The J&K administration is doing everything possible to help the BJP and recently created the king’s party by locking up anti-BJP candidates, using security as an excuse. If the security situation is not conducive to campaigning, what was the need to announce elections? “
PDP Chairman Mehbooba Mufti also tweeted: “Non-BJP candidates for DDC polls cannot freely campaign and are locked up under the guise of security. But BJP and its proxies have full bandobast to move. Is this the democracy that the Government of India claimed to promote in yesterday’s telephone conversation with the president-elect of the United States?
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The provincial president of the National Conference (Kashmir), Nasir Aslam Wani, said: “Many of our candidates have told us that they are not allowed to campaign while their competitors are. How do they go campaigning when they are so restricted? I have raised this with management, but have not yet received a response. “
The development comes in the context of the Union Interior Minister Amit Shah describing the PAGD together with Congress as the “Gupkar gang” that wanted to “bring J&K back into the age of terror and confusion.” . The PAGD is a coalition of seven parties, including NC, PDP, J&K People’s Conference, and CPI (M) formed last month. These parties decided to contest the DDC polls together, uniting against the BJP.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Shah also called the alliance an “ungodly global gathbandhan” who wanted “foreign forces to intervene in J&K.”
Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah had reacted sharply to Shah’s comments. “Fighting elections in an alliance is also anti-national now,” Mufti tweeted. Omar called it Shah’s “frustration” because “he had been informed that the Popular Alliance was preparing to boycott the elections”, but “we ignored them.”
In the first phase of the DDC elections scheduled for November 28, 167 candidates are in the fray from 10 districts in the Valley. In the second phase, 227 candidates have submitted their nomination papers (subject to scrutiny) and nominations are still being received for the third phase.
Sources in New Delhi said: “Some troops were withdrawn from Kashmir earlier in the wake of the Bihar elections. Now they are coming back. The rest has been drawn from deployment in various states, ”said an official.
“The security situation is currently fragile with Pakistan constantly trying to foment problems in Kashmir since the repeal of Article 370. There has been an increase in local recruitment. Terrorist attacks by foreign militants have also had a result, although stoning and public protests have dropped considerably. There is always a threat to candidates in local body polls in Kashmir, ”the official said.
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