POLITICAL PARTIES in Jammu and Kashmir slammed the Centre's stand in the Supreme Court, saying it was ready to hold elections in the Union Territory any time and that the call had to be taken by the Election Commission, as "intentional diversion", to shift focus away from the petitions challenging the abrogation of J&K’s special status in the Constitution. At the hearing held on Thursday over challenges to Article 370, the Centre also told the Court that restoration of statehood will "take some time". National Conference (NC) chief spokesperson Tanveer Sadiq said that as a petitioner in the case, the party had "pleaded the Court to strike down the August 5, 2019, decision (abrogating Article 370) as unconstitutional", and to restore the position that existed earlier. "We have not approached the Court for elections. The Solicitor General's (SG's) statement appears to divert attention and simplify the issue to just a demand for elections, creating intentional confusion. Our consistent stand has been that the restoration of democratic rights and a duly elected body can't be further delayed," Sadiq said. J&K has been without an elected legislature for over five years now, ever since the PDP-BJP government fell in 2018. Political leaders in the Union Territory have been seeking elections, with the Centre giving various reasons for why the polls were not being held. In January this year, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar had said that the EC was "aware that once the process (of updating electoral rolls) is complete, elections must be held". He, however, stopped short of giving a time frame, saying polls would be held "keeping in mind several factors, including weather and the security conditions". The Centre has now told the Supreme Court in the course of the Article 370 hearings that the security situation in J&K has drastically improved — citing declining figures of militant attacks, stone-throwing protests and separatist-sponsored shutdowns. The parties said the delay shows that the Centre is "actually afraid of the political weather" in J&K. "The SG's attempts at obfuscation reveal that his statements bring nothing new in terms of statehood or elections. The hesitance of the BJP government to conduct Assembly elections stems from apprehension," Sadiq said. "Moreover, the fact that almost five years of Governor's and President's rule have passed, and they remain uncertain about providing a definite time frame, underscores their perplexity and lack of confidence in their claims." Asked for a definite time frame on "the return to democracy" in J&K by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, SG Mehta told the Court that the Centre was committed to it as well as the return of statehood to J&K, and that action was being taken in this regard. A senior political leader said their initial enthusiasm over the Court proceedings, on petitions challenging the abrogation after four years, had evaporated. "It seems to be a negotiation between the State and the adjudicator, in which the principal party has been kept out," the leader said. Senior PDP leader and former minister Naeem Akhtar said: "We haven’t gone to court seeking the status of state, only status quo ante, ie, restoration of Articles 370 and 35A. Elections without statehood don't mean anything. You have a state in Delhi, full-fledged, except land and police, which has been reduced to lesser than a municipality, despite court injunctions. We are already under the AFSPA. You have an avalanche of state agencies watching you. What would be the position of a CM or a minister in such a place?" Even the Apni Party, seen as having the Centre's blessing, dismissed the government's statement in the apex court as "nothing new". "It is the same casual statement they have been giving for the last three years," Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari told reporters. "There was an understanding earlier that elections would be held soon and statehood would be restored. Now, there seems to be no seriousness left."
