||Black and White Digital News ||

||Parvinder Singh August 05,2024 ||

Jammu : With the Election Commission of India’s high-level team set to visit Jammu and Kashmir from August 8 to review the preparedness for the eagerly anticipated Assembly elections, the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has issued an urgent directive to its local unit: finalize panels of potential candidates within a week.

According to highly placed sources within the BJP, the party’s central leadership is keen to put the finishing touches on its preparation for the Assembly polls. This directive comes hot on the heels of the August 5 rally at R.S. Pura, organized to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370 and 35-A. Following this significant event, the BJP will expedite the process of establishing panels of potential candidates for all 90 Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir.

Sources indicate that the national general secretary (organization), B.L. Santosh, is expected to visit Jammu next week to personally review the preparations for the Assembly elections in the Union Territory. In line with the central leadership’s directives, the BJP has already initiated the process of preparing panels, each comprising three potential candidates for every assembly segment in J&K.

The BJP’s strategy is clear: secure maximum support from the Hindu-majority seats in Jammu province and the Pahari-speaking communities in Kashmir province. By doing so, the party aims to achieve a majority independently. To this end, the BJP has conducted comprehensive surveys to evaluate the performance of its former MLAs, including those who served as ministers in the previous PDP-BJP coalition government.

The party engaged a private agency to carry out a computerized survey, assessing the impact of the BJP-led NDA government’s initiatives, particularly in the post-abrogation of Article 370 era. Highly placed sources revealed that the BJP had enlisted private agencies to gather feedback on potential candidates. The party has received detailed performance reports of its former MLAs and MLCs ahead of the upcoming polls, with decisions on ticket allocation hinging on these assessments.

This assessment process has been conducted with utmost secrecy, taking into account not only the public performance of ex-legislators in their respective constituencies but also their public conduct.

The Election Commission’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir, set to begin on August 8, will see the full Commission – Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu – holding meetings with political parties and officials to review election preparedness. Additionally, the ECI team will engage with police officials to scrutinize the security arrangements for the upcoming polls.

In a related move, the ECI recently directed the J&K government to reassign officers who are serving in their home districts and those who have been stationed in a particular district for more than three years over the past four years. This directive underscores the Commission’s commitment to ensuring a fair and transparent electoral process in Jammu and Kashmir.

With the clock ticking and the Election Commission’s visit imminent, the BJP’s rapid mobilization efforts reflect the high stakes and intense political maneuvering that characterize the run-up to the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir. The coming days will undoubtedly be pivotal as the BJP strives to finalize its candidate panels and secure a robust position ahead of the elections.