Amit Shah, the union home minister, unveiled the BJP’s manifesto and began the party’s poll campaign on Friday for the approaching Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections.
During his two-day tour to the Union Territory, Amit Shah addressed party supporters, stating that Article 370 is “part of history now and that it will never come back.”
Amit Shah made a bold statement around Article 370 in J&K
The home minister praised the BJP’s ten years in power, calling it “Jammu and Kashmir’s golden era” and noting that the party had brought about peace, advancement, and development during that time.
There are 90 seats in the J&K Assembly, and there are 87.09 lakh voters in the UT.
The Assembly elections in J&K in 2014, 2008, 2002, and 1996 were conducted across five, seven, and four phases, respectively; these would be the shortest in at least 28 years.
The EC has chosen not to hold the polls when the Assembly elections were scheduled for 2019 because of security concerns. Following that, the J&K Reorganization Act, 2019 was approved by Parliament, eliminating J&K’s special status and dividing the region into J&K and Ladakh, two Union Territories. A delimitation procedure led to an increase in J&K’s number of seats, which included four from Ladakh, from 87 to 90 (without Ladakh) in 2022. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered the EC to hold the J&K elections by September 30, 2024.