The Union Government has given a go-ahead to the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) civil administration to hold Panchayat (village level local self-Government institution) elections in over 60 per cent seats in the Valley that have remained vacant since polls were last held in the erstwhile State in 2018, reports ThePrint on December 27.On December 24, J&K Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Shailendra Kumar held a meeting via video conference to discuss the window for conducting the elections, Government sources said. CEO, Kumar confirming the development, and said plans to hold the polls were in preliminary stages as of now. “We can’t say that the process to hold the polls has been initiated. It will only be initiated when the CEO issues a notification. But yes, the Centre has given an indication to hold the polls, though the plan to do so is in preliminary stages.”He further added, “We first need to complete the electoral roll by this year end and then only we can think about holding the polls taking into factors like weather into account.”
Elections are also to be held in vacant seats of Jammu and Ladakh. However, the number of vacant seats in the two regions is much lower than that in the Kashmir division.Out of Kashmir’s 20,093 Panch (member of a Panchayat, a village level local self-Government institution) and Sarpanch (head of the Panchayat, village level local self-Government institution) seats, a massive 12,565 seats, or over 62 per cent, have remained vacant since the conduct of urban local body and Panchayatelections in October-November last year. Only 6,162 panchs and 1,366 sarpanchs were elected in the polls.In comparison, Jammu has only 166 vacant seats after it saw the election of 15,800 panchs and 2,289 sarpanchs. In Ladakh, 1,414 panchs and 192 sarpanchs were elected, with 45 seats remaining vacant.