'If Modi is re-elected again, we can forget these things for a long time.'
Although the Supreme Court has mandated the Centre to conduct the polls by the end of September, a spate of terrorist attacks in J&K could cause delays.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hit the poll campaign trail in support of his party candidates on Saturday by addressing a mega rally in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district, amid tight security arrangements.
'I should not have lifted my hand, but whoever eats the meat of a cow, whom we Hindus consider our mother, these things will happen.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party is projected to get a majority in Jharkhand while Jammu and Kashmir may return a hung verdict with PDP emerging as the single largest party followed by BJP in assembly elections in the two states, according to two separate exit polls on Saturday.
People's Democratic Party MLA Waheed Para on Monday moved a resolution in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly opposing the abrogation of Article 370 and calling for the restoration of special status to the erstwhile state, leading to noisy scenes in the House.
"I'm amazed channels are bothering with exit polls especially after the fiasco of the recent general elections. I'm ignoring all the noise on channels, social media, WhatsApp etc. because the only numbers that matter will be revealed on the 8th of Oct. The rest is just time pass," Abdullah, a former chief minister, wrote on X.
Pressure is mounting for a resolution to be moved in the assembly when it meets next week for its maiden sitting to demand 'restoration of Article 370 and Article 35A' as committed in the National Conference's election manifesto, reveals Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said the EC was very enthused by the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir during the Lok Sabha elections, which showed the eagerness of the people to participate in the democratic process.
In his first visit to the valley after becoming the prime minister for the third consecutive term, Modi emphasised the importance of enabling the people of Jammu and Kashmir to elect their representatives for the assembly.
'People will feel cheated as they always felt a part of India. We want to be with India and we want people of India to accept us.' Laway tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Omar Abdullah will have to negotiate at every step with the lieutenant governor's office and the Modi government at the Centre.
'The whole Kashmiri population is seemed to be a suspect community. This status is not good.'
National Conference Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, along with Peoples Democratic Party leaders Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra, Sheikh Khursheed and others, led a peaceful protest on Monday, December 23, 2024, outside Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's residence in Srinagar.
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
So far 14 Kashmiri Pandits have filed nominations to contest from the valley for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, aiming to ensure the return and rehabilitation of their fellow community members, whose number run up to 3 lakh.
'My mother feels it will be tough and emotional for her to enter an assembly which has essentially been reduced to a municipality now.' 'My opinion is that even if it is a municipality one cannot cede that space to the BJP.'
A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud considered the pleas in chambers and dismissed applications for listing of the review petition in open Court.
'Right now, we have no relationship with Pakistan. And the relationship with China is not great.'
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday said that Centre's course of action regarding cases similar to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru will determine whether Guru's hanging was "selective and political".
Incidentally, 164 of the total 356 candidates in the fray from the 43 assembly seats of Jammu region got less votes than none of the above, which gives an option to voters to reject all candidates in a constituency.
Officials said the polling went off peacefully in all segments including special polling stations along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) with no untoward incident reported from anywhere.
'...or go to jail.' 'The government is getting them silenced.'
All India Congress Committee General Secretary Prithviraj Chavan, former Chief Minster Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Union Minister Saiffudin Soz, along with Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony are likely to take part in the deliberations. Congress sources said the election results clearly indicate that National Conference will be in a position to form the government with support of Congress and from some independents.
'We put the seed of BJP's ideology in Jammu, watered it, nurtured it for four decades and when it was time to reap the fruits of those efforts, the fruits are being sold out to the very same people who worked hard to uproot this tree.' 'Shockingly, our own people are letting this happen and nobody from Delhi bothers to even listen to us.'
Kumar also hinted that the Maharashtra elections could be held after Diwali.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission and the government for holding early assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Congress will be a part of the government, Omar said, emerging from a meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday. The meeting took place in the backdrop of both National Conference and the People's Democratic Party initially showing the inclination to form the government in the state and Congress having a rethink on whether it should support NC or PDP.
The PM said the Congress and its allies should not encourage the "Pakistan agenda" and speak the language of separatists.
People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti and several other regional party leaders on Monday claimed that they have been placed under house arrest on the fifth anniversary of the reading down of Article 370 of the Constitution that provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
"It does worry me. These trends are the outcome of unfortunate things happened in July and August. The question is that secularism is getting shrunk at the cost of development," Azad said, adding that it should be 'a worry for each and every Indian'.
The PDP looks a distant third in the race, observes Mohammed Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir politics.
'Me contesting elections from two seats is not a proof of weakness, it is a proof of the strength of the National Conference.'
Former Army Chief Gen V K Singh has pleaded that Jammu and Kashmir assembly drop breach of privilege proceedings against him over his alleged remarks that army had paid bribes to politicians in the state, contending he has not spoken anything that was not available in the public domain.
Both candidates have shifted from their traditional constituencies - Sadhotra from Marh and Sharma from Akhnoor - after these two segments were reserved for Scheduled Castes.
'Everyone is unhappy with the lieutenant governor's administration, which is ignorant, high-handed, and inaccessible.'
Dubey visited the party headquarters at Trikuta Nagar in Jammu this evening and posed with Sharma and other senior leaders of the party, which the BJP termed as a move to show the "unity and the strength of the organisation".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday mocked Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray for "handing over the remote control" of the party to the Congress as he took poll battle to Mumbai with less than a week left for voting in Maharashtra.
'The BJP wants to find an excuse to polarise people.' 'Whatever rights J&K has got from the Constitution of India, they want to snatch it.' 'By doing so, they are harming J&K as well as India.'
