Indian-controlled Kashmir votes in first regional election in decade

NEW DELHI: The three-phased regional election started in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, with voters casting their ballots for the first time in a decade and in a new political setting after the Indian government stripped the region of its autonomy.

The election is held in stages until Oct. 1 to elect a 90-member local assembly instead of remaining under the direct rule of New Delhi. The result will be announced on Oct. 8.

Over 9 million Kashmiris are registered to vote in the region known for boycotting elections.

“This election is important because the election is taking place after 10 years,” said Mubashir Ahmad Bhat, a businessman in the Shopian district in Kashmir’s south.

In the first phase, 24 local assembly seats were contested, with 16 in the southern Kashmir valley and eight in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. Over 2.3 million people were registered to vote.

“The election will bring our own people to the assembly who will hopefully listen to us,” Bhat said. “When the new elected government comes, people’s problems would be addressed.”

Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir is part of the larger Kashmiri territory, which has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Both countries claim Kashmir in full and rule in part. Indian-controlled Kashmir has, for decades, witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgencies to resist control from the government in New Delhi.

The Indian-controlled Kashmir has been without a local government since 2018 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party brought down a coalition government elected in 2014, forcing the assembly to dissolve.

A year later, Modi’s government repealed Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted the region its semi-autonomy and downgraded it from a state to a federally controlled territory.

Voting for candidates who could lead the change and reclaim some of the region’s agency is what pushes many Kashmiris to cast their ballots.

“We haven’t had our government for the last 10 years. We want our own government who can listen to us,” Mohammed Munsif Saqib, a 32-year-old businessman, told Arab News.

After the scrapping of Kashmir’s autonomous status and statehood, a series of administrative changes followed, with the Indian government removing protections on land and jobs for the local population, which many likened to attempts at demographically altering the region.

“We have lost many facilities after losing the statehood and we want the statehood back. We have had our own local reservation in jobs and educational institutions, which are not there,” Saqib said.

“The loss of the special status is also motivating people to come out and express their feelings through the vote. This was important and people felt it. But the most important thing is the restoration of statehood.”

Some of the candidates — among the 219 competing — have been present in Kashmiri politics for years, including Iltija Mufti, the daughter of Kashmir’s former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and Omar Abdullah, former chief minister whose father and grandfather have also held the office.

But younger voters like 32-year-old Abdul Rashid Pala from Shopian seek change and new prospects in the region where unemployment stands at around 18 percent — nearly double India’s average.

“We want our own policymakers for development. The assembly will bring a good employment scheme,” he said.

“My motivation to vote is that the politics here is concentrated in a few hands and I am against this dynastic politics. I am for development.”