Elections are good for the health of democracy but have to be free, fair and transparent at all costs. Unfortunately fears and apprehensions over the transparency of elections persisting for last several decades don’t head to any dead end in Jammu & Kashmir as coercive politics has been consistently pursued by the successive central governments to run the elected governments in Jammu & Kashmir at their own whims and wishes. Jammu and Kashmir was though a state with a special status until August 5 last year but unfortunately Jammu & Kashmir was also the country’s only state where frequently elected governments were either overthrown by the successive central governments or run at the whims and wishes of the ruling party in power at the centre. Even now the incumbent central government tends to execute it’s own plans even over the formation of district development councils (DDCs) and that too before the announcement of the results expected on December 20 . So the root cause of the crisis in Jammu & Kashmir is the perceived lack of legitimacy of the elections and as well as the policies of the political parties in power at the centre to share power with the regional parties in Jammu & Kashmir. Knowing all about a shaky journey of the mainstream political parties in Jammu & Kashmir ever since it’s downgrading from a state to a union territory and the withdrawal of special status to it on August 5 last year the central government should have given up the policy of executing plans of political fragmentation both in Kashmir valley and as well as Jammu region but unfortunately the utterances of the central BJP leaders visiting Kashmir for campaigning of their party candidates for ongoing DDC elections are sufficient enough to indicate that the incumbent central government is yet to learn lessons from the failures of the successive central governments in Jammu & Kashmir since early fifties till 2018. In fact the provocative remarks of the BJP’s central leaders during campaigning for their party candidates in Kashmir has generated more hate than the sympathy for the saffron party not only in Kashmir but also in some of the strongholds of BJP in Jammu region.
The solutions to the trust deficit would by all standards of understandability only come through the processes of transparent elections and restoration of legislative powers in Jammu & Kashmir. Coercive methods to run any popular government in Jammu & Kashmir at the whims and wishes of the political party in power at the centre would by all probabilities shut the doors for any political reconciliation in Jammu & Kashmir.
If the saffron party does not give up the policy of political fragmentation in Jammu & Kashmir after the ongoing DDC elections the central government’s plans for the restoration of trust and confidence of the people in the working of the democratic institutions may hit more roadblocks instead of reaching to a point of satisfaction before the conduct of next assembly elections. The solutions to the trust deficit would by all standards of understandability only come through the processes of transparent elections and restoration of legislative powers in Jammu & Kashmir. Coercive methods to run any popular government in Jammu & Kashmir at the whims and wishes of the political party in power at the centre would by all probabilities shut the doors for any political reconciliation in Jammu & Kashmir.
