One day before the Union territory casts its votes in the third round of assembly elections, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday postponed the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s appointment of an army officer as senior superintendent of police.
The poll panel cited the administration’s order designating Colonel Vikrant Prasher, Para, High Altitude Warfare School, Gulmarg, as the SSP (Training) and Special (Operations) in J&K Police in a written directive to the chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir.
The EC cited the Model Code of Conduct, which is in effect because of the assembly election and prohibits the movement of polling officer personnel.
“The Election Commission hereby directs that order shall be kept in abeyance with immediate effect, without going into the rationale at this stage, process, and urgency of posting of an Army officer as SSP in the civil side during the period of operation of MCC,” the election panel said.
The order said that “the status quo prior to the issuance of the order must be restored immediately if the order has already been implemented.”
The J&K chief secretary has been instructed by the EC to provide a compliance report by October 1 at 11 a.m., along with a thorough justification for “issuing the order without obtaining the required clearance” from it.
On October 1, the third round of the J&K elections will take place. In the third phase, 5,060 polling places serving 40 assembly segments in the Jammu area (Jammu, Udhampur, Samba, and Kathua) and the north Kashmir region (Baramulla, Bandipora, and Kupwara) would host nearly 39.18 lakh eligible voters to cast ballots.
In the first and second phases, which took place on September 18 and September 25, respectively, there was a strong voter turnout of 61.38 per cent and 57.31 per cent, respectively. With the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, J&K was divided into a Union territory, and this is the first assembly election held there since then.