Fayaz Bukhari

Prime Minister Narender Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s focus seems to be on development, fighting corruption and militancy in Kashmir before the Assembly elections are held in the state that has been under Central rule for past one year.

J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik with home minister Amit Shah

Although Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) raised the bogey of scraping Article 35A and Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir, and delimitation to increase the number of Assembly seats in Jammu province, the focus for the time being seems to be on development and tackling militancy. In fact, Prime Minister Modi recently said that the Centre’s goal in the state is ‘good governance, development, responsibility and accountability’.

But the locals believe that before the Assembly elections, the BJP may try for delimitation as that will increase the Assembly segments in Jammu region. This is clearly aimed at paving the way for the BJP to form the government in the state without involvement of two main regional parties - National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

The NC has time and again accused the BJP of promoting smaller parties in Kashmir so as to divide the votes in the Valley and consolidate them in Jammu region. However, minister of state for home G. Kishan Reddy told Parliament that Jammu and Kashmir was not included within the purview of the Delimitation Act, 2002, as Article 170 of the Constitution of India that deals with delimitation of constituencies of