Embarrassing flip-flop on J&K poll roll revision
When the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, policy somersaults could follow. Take the special summary electoral roll revision announced last week in Jammu and Kashmir to prepare the ground for elections, possibly in the first half of next year. J&K’s Chief Electoral Officer, Hirdesh Kumar, said the Representation of the People Act, 1951 will apply as Article 370 was read down in 2019. He said it would open the door for non-locals who ordinarily live in the UT to get the right to franchise there for the first time. That apart, there are over 23 lakh who have attained voting age since 2019.
He estimated 25 lakh fresh additions to the J&K poll rolls. Kumar got his headline that lit a fire against non-local voting rights. Following a huge uproar, the administration was forced to walk back on the figure of 25 lakh in an explainer advertisement it inserted in local dailies and go silent on the non-local part during the poll roll revision.
Whether or not non-locals would be added to the list remains to be seen. Something similar happened recently with a sensible proposal to relocate Rohingya refugees in government EWS quarters on Delhi’s outskirts. Had that been done silently, it could possibly have gone through as the Union home ministry was very much invested in the plan. But when a Union minister without the Sangh pedigree sought to earn brownie points for the government by making a song and dance about it, backlash from hotheads forced the home ministry to distance itself and nix the proposal.
Just the other day, the highest political authority in J&K claimed the UT had no political prisoners, adding even Hurriyat Conference head Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was not under house arrest. But when local journalists sought to call on him at his residence, security personnel denied them entry. False steps and missteps complicate matters in a sensitive UT where Delhi has always been viewed with suspicion, more so after the delimitation exercise. It’s up to the Centre to dispel fears of gerrymandering and bridge the trust deficit. Holding free and fair elections without tilting the scales would be the way forward.