India: Kashmir votes in assembly elections after a decade

Voting began on Wednesday in Indian-administered Kashmir in its first local elections in a decade and also for the first time since the disputed region was stripped of its semi-autonomous status five years ago.

Polling is staggered geographically in the three-phased ballot to elect the local government because of security arrangements and logistical issues in the restive Himalayan region.

Additional troops deployed

Amid a heavy police and paramilitary presence, over 2.3 million residents are eligible to cast their votes in the first phase on Wednesday, which will see 24 Assembly constituencies contested in the region's seven southern districts.

Kashmir remains one of the world's most militarized zones with about 500,000 Indian troops deployed in the region, battling a three-decade-old deadly insurgency.

Troops were seen wearing riot gear and carrying assault rifles, as they set up checkpoints and patrolled the constituencies in the districts where locals lined up to cast their votes.

Crucial election

The region — which has 8.7 million registered voters —  held its last assembly election in 2014.

Many in the Muslim-majority territory are embittered over the 2019 decision by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist government to remove the region's special status and downgrade the former state to a federally governed territory.

The Modi government says that repealing the region's special status restored normalcy in
the area and helped its development.

"As the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections begins, I urge all ... to vote in large numbers and strengthen the festival of democracy," Modi said on social media platform X on Wednesday.

The elections would allow Indian-administered Kashmir to have its own government and a local legislature.

There will be a chief minister heading a council of ministers in the government.

But the transition of power from New Delhi to the local assembly would be limited with Kashmir remaining a "Union Territory," directly controlled by the government in the center and India's Parliament continuing to be its main legislator.

The second and third phases of the polls are slated for September 25 and October 5. Ballots will be counted on October 8, with results expected the same day.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety, each currently administering a part of the region.

dvv/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters)