By Shivam Patel
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India will hold provincial elections in the Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir from Sept. 18, the Election Commission said on Friday, the first regional polls there in a decade and five years after New Delhi scrapped the region’s special autonomy.
India’s only Muslim-majority region, Jammu and Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 75 years of animosity with neighbouring Pakistan since the birth of the two nations in 1947 at independence from colonial rule by Britain.
The larger Kashmir region is divided between India, Pakistan and China. The part ruled by India had a special status that was revoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 and the state was split into two federally-administered territories.
The decision to hold fresh elections follows a December order by India’s Supreme Court that rejected petitions challenging the revocation of Kashmir’s special status and set a deadline of Sept. 30 for holding provincial polls.
Nearly 9 million people are registered to vote for the 90-member legislative assembly, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told reporters.
The vote will be held in three phases and ballots counted on Oct. 4, with results expected the same day.
Modi says his 2019 decision brought normalcy to Kashmir after decades of bloodshed and that the special status allowed it a measure of administrative autonomy that held back the region’s development.
His government has since launched multiple projects to boost the local economy while tourism has boomed in the scenic, mountainous region.
India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in full but rule it in part after having fought two of their three wars over the region. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in an insurgency against Indian rule in the region which began in 1989, although the violence has tapered off in recent years.
India blames Pakistan for training, funding and pushing Islamist militants into its part of Kashmir from across a ceasefire line, with a spate of recent attacks targeting the Hindu-dominated Jammu area more than the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley.
Pakistan denies the charges and says it only provides diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiris seeking self-determination.
Elections in Kashmir have been targeted by militants in the past and also seen low voter turnout. However, the territory recorded its highest turnout in 35 years in national parliamentary elections held in April and May this year, with a 58.46% participation rate.
Kumar said the people of Kashmir “chose the ballot instead of bullet and boycott” in the national election and the Election Commission wants to build on that, adding there would be sufficient security forces to ensure a peaceful vote.
(Reporting by Shivam PatelEditing by YP Rajesh and Frances Kerry)
