SRINAGAR, MAR 10 : Election Commissioner Sunil Arora announced that no state elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir. He said only parliamentary elections will be held.
He said the elections will be held in five phases.
Election Commissioner Sunil Arora announced counting for all states will be held on May 23.
Earlier in the day, word was doing the rounds that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir might be delayed given the tight security situation in the region.
There is a strong possibility that the EC may go by the precedent and hold assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls.
Since the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there as well within a six-month period, which will end in May.
While there is a view that the J-K assembly elections can be held along with the Lok Sabha polls, a lot depends on the complex security situation in the state given the heightened tension along the India-Pakistan border.
The Centre and the state administration, being managed by the Centre-appointed Governor, are against holding the two elections together.
However, all political parties in the state favoured simultaneous polls during a meeting with the Election Commission earlier this week.
The J-K assembly’s six-year term was to end on March 16, 2021, but it got dissolved after a ruling coalition between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell apart.
