The Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir is set to witness maiden polls in which West Pakistani Refugees are going to exercise their right to franchise to fill the seats of District Development Councils (DDC) in eight phases beginning November 28. With the announcement of the poll schedule the model code of conduct has also been imposed with immediate effect.
Addressing a press conference here in Jammu on Wednesday, newly appointed State Election Commissioner KK Sharma along with the Chief Electoral Officer Hridesh Kumar announced that elections for the vacant seats of sarpanchs and panchs and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) will also be held simultaneously with the DDC polls.
The eight phase poll schedule will begin from November 28 and will conclude on December 22. Elaborate security arrangements would remain in place to ensure incident free polls. “We are also taking care of Covid-19 guidelines to ensure safety of voters, especially senior citizens and Covid-19 positive patients,” State Election Commissioner said.
The first formal notification for the first phase of elections will be issued on November 5, Sharma said.
He said delimitation has been done for the constituencies and 280 DDCs have been identified across the J&K UT. “The term of the DDC will be for five years,” Sharma said. “Each DDC in J&K has 14 constituencies,” Sharma said.
Welcoming the poll announcement, President of the West Pakistan Refugee Action Committee Labha Ram Gandhi told The Pioneer, “We are gearing up to participate in the District Development Council polls and Urban Local bodies”. He said, “previously we only voted for Parliamentary polls and in the absence of voting rights in the Assembly and Panchayat elections we were kept out of the grass roots politics. Now we can field our candidates and support them to strengthen the grass roots politics on ground zero”. The Chief Electoral Officer Hridesh Kumar told reporters that polling will take place through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) while postal ballots will be available for Covid-19 patients in isolation, senior citizens and physically unwell patients.
State Election Commissioner KK Sharma said that electoral rolls used in Sarpanch and Panch elections that have been updated on January 1, 2020, will be used for the DDC polls.
Polls will also be held subsequently for 228 vacant seats of ULBs. Sharma said that after taking feedback from various security agencies, a proper security mechanism will remain in place and “all concerns have been taken into consideration.”
He said the expenditure limit for the DDC polls per candidate is Rs 5 lakh, 1 lakh for Sarpanch seat and Rs 50,000 for Panch seat.