J&K Polls Possible in October-November If EC Completes Works by September, Sources Tell News18

The Jammu and Kashmir elections could take place in October-November if the Election Commission completes its poll preparations by September-end, top sources have told News18. If this happens, then the elections in Jammu and Kashmir will take place along with Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls this year.

According to top sources of the Election Commission, the poll panel had recently met with the officials of the Delimitation Commission. The Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu and Kashmir was also present in the meeting. The EC was briefed about the delimitation and the requirements for conducting polls in J&K. A letter will be written to the Chief Electoral Officer for starting the necessary work.

If the preparations are not completed by September, then the elections will take place after February. In fact, it is impossible to conduct elections in December, January and February in J&K due to snowfall.

Work of Election Commission

The Election Commission has to prepare the assembly constituencies, according to the new delimitation order. Under this, the EC will have to identify the polling station, determine poll officers apart from assigning the in charge, prepare and review voters’ list. The Election Commission now has four months till September to complete all the necessary work.

J&K Assembly After Delimitation

Recently, after 26 months of the exercise, the delimitation of Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir was completed. Election will be held for the 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, and, for the first time, nine seats have been reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. All five Lok Sabha seats of Jammu and Kashmir are made up of exactly 18 assembly constituencies each, taking the total number to 90. There are 43 seats in the Jammu region and 47 in the Kashmir region. The boundary of any one assembly constituency has not been kept in more than one district.

The erstwhile J&K state had 111 seats, 46 in Kashmir, 37 in Jammu, and 4 in Ladakh, and 24 seats reserved for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. When Ladakh was created as UT, J&K was left with 107 seats, including 24 seats from PoK.

After the abrogation of Article 370, the total number of assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir increased to 114, incudling 90 from J&K.

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