ELECTION: Finally the announcement is made But is the time appropriate for holding these elections! POLITICS AIJAZ ASHRAF WANI aijazpol@gmail With Election Commission of India announcing that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held from November 25, 2014, the timing is surely going to be debated in academic and political circles in the backdrop of the recent devastating flood that left tens of thousands of people homeless and without livelihood. So is it a wrong decision on the part of Election Commission of India to announce polls to be held in time? Does it show the insensitivity of the political class at the central as well as state level to support holding of elections on scheduled time? And finally what is the politics behind backing of elections by some political parties and opposing it by ruling National Conference? Well there are different ways of looking at these questions. One way of approaching this issue could be from the constitutional/legal perspective. Legally speaking the Election Commission is well within its right to conduct polls in the State on the scheduled dates. As clarified by the Election Commissioner H.S. Brahma, while talking to NDTV that the EC was mandated to hold the elections as the assemblys term comes to an end in January. He further stated that If we delay it beyond November or December, then we cant hold the elections before March or April as winter would have set in, ( ndtv/article/ india/jammu-and-kashmir-jharkhand- elections-to-be-held-in-five-phases- from-november-25-611737? pfrom=home-lateststories ). This could also have meant imposition of Governor’s rule in the State which possibly would have also come under severe criticism from various stakeholders within the State. Also the CEC V.S. Sampath told the media that “Except for one political party, most of the political parties (in Jammu and Kashmir) were in favour of holding elections on time. They said there is no reason, no justification for delaying the polls. The EC’s mandate is to hold elections on time,” ( thehindu/elections/ assembly2014/ fivephase-polls-in- jammu-and-kashmir-jharkhand-from- november-25/article6533265.ece? homepage=true). So to that extent the EC is well within its right to hold election on scheduled time. Second way of approaching this issue is from the point of view of political expediency. This is where political parties, both who pushed for holding elections and those who opposed, come in. Political parties within J&K who favour holding elections on time are politically correct in their demand if one analyses it from the logic of electoral politics. There is a valid political reason for them to do so. The ultimate aim of every political party is to gain power. So if a political party, who is out of power sees the ruling party/s on a week ground, and feel that they are comparatively in a better position to gain power, they will demand fresh election even before the scheduled time not to talk of holding them on time. So PDP and BJP, emboldened by their massive victories during the recent parliamentary elections and hoping to cash upon the disappointment among the people with respect to rescue and relief operation of the government during and after the floods, are doing what they are supposed to do--- politics. “As in the Lok Sabha election” wrote The Hindu editorial “in J&K, the People’s Democratic Party is expected to eat into the vote share of the National Conference, and the Bharatiya Janata Party may again raid the Congress strongholds” (The Hindu, October 27, 2014). So to expect them to support deferring elections is politically incorrect. So far as the BJP is concerned, riding on the Modi wave and its success in the Jammu and Ladakh region during the Parliamentary polls, it hopes to repeat its feat in the Assembly elections as well. The duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have started working on their “Mission 44” soon after the Lok Sabha results were declared. “The singular aspect of the coming polls” wrote The Telegraph “will be the BJP’s bid to capture power in India’s only Muslim-majority province….A palpably pro-Modi mood in the Jammu region (37 seats) following its Lok Sabha sweep and its first-time grab of Leh (4 seats) gives the BJP reason to believe it can assume “controlling stakes” in the frontier state, which most likely will throw up a fractured verdict…..And should the BJP capture more than 25 seats, it will play kingmaker, if not king” (Uncharted election terrain- Modi mission the X-factor in Kashmir race, The Telegraph, 26th Oct. 2014.) Similarly, PDP has every reason to feel emboldened to call for having elections on time. It is for the first time that PDP has captured all the three parliamentary seats in Kashmir region and they want to capitalize on the anger among the people against the lack of preparedness on the part of government to deal with the situation during and after the floods. They want to catch the government on the back foot, as it will be difficult for it to balance between relief and rehabilitation work on the one hand and electioneering process on the other. “The PDP, among the first Valley groups to welcome the announcement of the polls, is hoping to cash in on the widespread disaffection with the Omar Abdullah regime, especially with the tardy relief operations that have followed the flood devastation” (The Telegraph, 26th Oct. 2014). From National Conference point of view the demand for postponement of elections by few months was on expected lines. While NC based its demand on humanitarian grounds, however, the politics behind it cannot be missed. Having faced severe drubbing in the recent Parliamentary polls and having been washed away by floods, the government hoped to erase some of the bad memories from the minds of people by trying to put its best foot forward in the rehabilitation process. “Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appeared to have been motivated by the rationale of his own political survival when he mooted the deferring of the election in order to better deal with the flood crisis”(The Hindu, October 27, 2014) . Extra 3-4 months could have given the NC a chance to reach out to the people and regain some ground. But the question is why should other political parties take a chance and give opportunity to its opponents to reach out to the people. The government has been caught in a catch-22 situation—should it go for relief and rehabilitation process or completely focus on electioneering process. The other political parties could well be accused of playing politics on a human tragedy but so could be National Conference. The question is wouldn’t National Conference have done the same thing had it been in opposition? And with even the ruling coalition partner, Congress, favouring polls on time, the legitimacy to demand delaying polls by NC gets eroded. Even then if they really are concerned about the sufferings of the people and sincerely believe that politics was preferred over people let them take a moral stand to stay away from polls in protest. However, far from politics and insensitive politicization of a human tragedy is an alternative way of looking at the issue of elections---the Humane approach. Analyzed from this perspective there is a very strong reason to argue that the timing to hold elections is absolutely inappropriate. In view of the recent devastating floods, it is quit inappropriate, even inhumane, to ask people to vote while they are struggling to reconstruct their lives. According to official figures, the floods destroyed 1.04 lakh houses across the State while over 1.5 lakh houses suffered partial damage due to the natural calamity making the unsafe for living (The Hindu, Oct. 21, 2014). It is due to this reason that the announcement of the elections has been criticized not only by the separatist leadership but even by the civil society groups. The separatist leadership while urging people to boycott the elections has described the announcement as “adding insult to injury of flood victims” (Greater Kashmir, October 26, 2014). The civil society groups have rightly described the announcement in terms of ‘discontent with the people and insensitivity towards their needs’. With winter having already set in the immediate need for people is rehabilitation while the political process could have waited for a while. In fact when the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif raked up Kashmir in U.N, in September this year, Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi termed it untimely because of worsening flood situation in Kashmir. Now with the announcement of a month-long poll schedule the already delayed relief and rehabilitation process is surely going to take a back seat. Brushing aside demands from some quarters, mainly the ruling National Conference, that elections in flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir be postponed, Mr. Sampath said the recent calamity will have no “special impact” on polls (The Hindu October 26, 2014). However, with less than a month left for the first phase, one fails to understand how the process will not be hampered with all political parties getting fully involved in election process. Also with model code of conduct coming into effect immediately it is but obvious that lots of things will come to a halt. It will give the already snail-paced administration from top to bottom a hundred reasons not to perform their duties. The fact of the matter remains that with BJP ruling at the Centre and very much in favour of holding elections in the State the Election Commission of India had little choice. “Kashmir is still recovering from the devastation of the recent floods; the State and Central governments are still involved in relief and rehabilitation operations. But extraordinary as these circumstances are in the Valley, deferring the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir was never an option before the Election Commission” (The Hindu, October 27, 2014). With all said and done the essential point that we need to remind ourselves time and again is that the electioneering process should not divert the attention of the voluntary organizations and the people of Kashmir at large from taking to the logical conclusion the commendable job that they have been doing right from September 7. (Author is Assistant Professor,Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir)
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 03:08:11 +0000
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