Aasha Khosa/New Delhi

The forthcoming elections in J&K will lead to the forming of the Legislative Assembly with a five-year term. This is a big change as J&K was India’s only State where the Assembly enjoyed a six-year term for 49 years.

This bizarre rule was because of the privileges enjoyed by J&K under the cover of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and often misused to serve the vested interests and political elite.

It so happened that during the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975, the term of the Lok Sabha was changed from five to six years. All the States including J&K quickly followed it with giving a six-year term to their respective Legislative Assemblies

However, after Indira Gandhi lost elections in 1977 and the emergency ended, the terms of Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies were reverted to five years. However, J&K legislators continued with the six-year term rule to have an extra year of privileged life at the cost of the exchequer.   

Like this one, the political parties in the border state have to reconcile to many more changes on the ground as they get ready for elections beginning on September 18, in comparison with the 2014 exercise.

National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah with his party men

The most pronounced change is the widespread peace, and return of normalcy due to fall in the instances of violence due to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the Kashmir region.

Below are some big changes in which the Sept 18, 25, and Oct 1 elections are taking place:

Jammu and Kashmir is no longer a State with autonomous powers. It enjoys the same powers as the other Indian States. Its separate constitution and state flag were scrapped with the whittling of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution five years ago.

Ladakh is no longer part of J&K after the State's division into two Union Territories.

The going away of Article 370 has given voting rights to groups of Indian citizens who were earlier denied these rights. These voters include West Pakistan refugees, who had been living in J&K at least for seven decades without civic rights.

Interestingly, these people could vote in the Lok Sabha elections, they were not treated as permanent residents of J&K and thus denied voting rights in the civic and Assembly elections.

The new groups of voters also include refugees of wars and partition, scheduled caste people who were specially invited from Punjab, and the Gurkhas from Nepal. Punjabi safai karamcharis and Gurkhas were invited by the government and promised a decent life but were not given basic rights.

The Gurkhas came to the state some 150 years ago as soldiers of the Dogra Army. They enjoyed reverence and even a colony Magarmal Bagh in Srinagar named after their clans –Magar and Mal – was established in their honour and yet they were denied rights of residency, jobs, etc.

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh during his campaign for Lok Sabha election

Some of them qualified to join the Indian armed forces but faced problems as they were not issued domicile certificates by the J&K authorities.

The parties will be contesting on 90 assembly constituencies which is an increase of seven seats in the Legislative Assembly. This happened due to the award of the Delimitation Commission which awarded six more seats to the Jammu region and one to Kashmir taking their respective number to 43 and 47 respectively.

The J&K Assembly will also have two nominated women members and also two persons from internally displaced persons (due to terrorism) and one from PoJK refugees. All these nominated members will have voting rights.

By common sense, these five nominated members might hold the key to who rules J&K in case of a show of strength between the parties.

This takes the effective strength of the JK Assembly to 95.

Another distinct feature of the JK Assembly which remains unchanged is another 24 seats are earmarked and frozen for the people living in Pakistan-occupied territories taking the total number of seats in the J&K Legislative Assembly to 114..

There is a demand for defreezing at least some seats and allocating the same to the former refugees from these areas.

in yet another first, the scheduled tribes will enjoy political reservations in J&K from this election. Nine seats have been reserved for the community in the elections. This is in addition to six reserved seats for the Scheduled castes.

Also, for the first time, the UT of Jammu and Kashmir will not have a Legislative Council.

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One of the signs of normalcy in the UT is that this will be the shortest election for the border state since the eruption of militancy. Most importantly, observers are predicting the huge participation of the voters in the forthcoming elections.