NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) will hold a meeting with Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Wednesday to review the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir and assess the requirement of security personnel. The poll panel is expected to announce the dates for assembly elections in the Union Territory (UT) next week. The three-member ECI had travelled to the UT last week to review the poll preparedness there. Speaking to reporters in Jammu, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had said the poll panel was committed to holding assembly elections in the UT at the earliest, adding that no outside or internal forces could derail the electoral process.Jammu & Kashmir had registered a record turnout in the last Lok Sabha polls. At that time, Kumar had said: “This active participation is a huge positive for assembly elections to be held soon so that the democratic process continues to thrive in the Union Territory.”Whenever assembly elections are held in Jammu and Kashmir, they will be the first since provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution were done away with and the erstwhile state of J&K was divided into two UTs – J&K (with assembly) and Ladakh (without assembly) in August 2019.
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