After Oppn, BJP and PDP leaders also want J&K panchayat elections to be pushed back

While the government had earlier announced February 15 as a possible date, the poll notification for that should have been issued on January 17 – it has not been issued so far. There is also no preparatory activity by the state government for holding the elections.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is likely to travel to New Delhi next week to present the case for postponing the polls to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, top political and administrative sources told The Indian Express.

The state government has already sent a report on the security situation to the Home Ministry, stating that in the prevailing climate the administration will need an additional 400 companies of central security forces to conduct the elections, according to an official privy to the development.

With the Centre preparing for deployment of central security forces in the Northeast for Assembly elections in Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya, providing such a large number of personnel to conduct local elections in J&K may be difficult, the official said.

For the Centre to agree on postponing the polls, however, would be an admission that the ground situation in the state continues to be bad. In view of this, a state government functionary said, a pushback from the Home Ministry to hold the polls on time cannot be ruled out.

‘’The party has already conveyed to the Chief Minister that elections (at this juncture) can invite fresh violence,” a senior PDP leader close to Mehbooba Mufti said. “The elections will be delayed by a few months…. This time the government’s focus is on peace and normalcy, not the elections.’’

The state police are also learnt to have conveyed to the government that elections now may spark a fresh cycle of violence in different parts of the Valley.