Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir has completed five years of direct rule from Government of India , marking the second longest period in the state’s history with no elected government in power.
Voices rising from the state are ever more critical of the BJP, with the former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah accusing the saffron party of not holding polls because of ‘fearing imminent defeat’, NDTV reported.
Several other leaders including Sajad Lone of People’s Conference blamed ‘continuous denial of democracy’ in the state after it was stripped of statehood.
In August 2019 the government of India controversially repealed Article 370, depriving the state of its ‘semi-autonomous position’, thus suspending polls turning it into Union Territory.
Jammu and Kashmir has been under presidential rule for eight times since 1977 while other states came under central rule a total of 125 times, according to the report.
The last assembly elections were held in 2014.
Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party and the BJP formed alliance after agreeing on a common minimum agenda. The alliance, however, collapsed on June 19, 2018 after the BJP withdrew its support to the PDP-led coalition.
