NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India is scheduled to hold a meeting with Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and assess the requirements of security personnel. The three-member ECI had last week travelled to the UT to review the poll preparedness there.This comes in as the poll panel plans to announce the dates for holding assembly elections in the Union Territory (UT) sometime by next week, sources said on Tuesday. At a press conference in Jammu, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had told reporters emphasising that the poll panel is committed to holding assembly elections in the UT at the earliest and had asserted that no outside or internal forces can derail the electoral process.After record turnout in the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir, 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.The electoral exercise in Jammu and Kashmir is usually spread over a month. Following a delimitation exercise, the number of assembly seats has gone up from 83 to 90, excluding those allocated to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Last December, the Supreme Court directed the poll panel to hold assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30.In a fresh indication that assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir are imminent, the EC last month asked the UT administration to transfer out officers posted in their home districts, an exercise it holds ahead of conducting elections. The ECI has been following a consistent policy that officers directly connected with the conduct of elections in a poll-bound state or an UT are not posted in their home districts or places where they have served for a considerably long period.Recently, it had ordered to update the electoral rolls in Jammu and Kashmir and three other poll-bound states – Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
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