July 13, 1999
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| July 13, 1999 | atimes.com | |
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| India/Pakistan Elections on time despite Kargil conflict By Ranjit Dev Raj NEW DELHI - India's confidence in an early end tothe border conflict around Kargil is apparent in an announcementSunday that general elections, including in disputed Kashmir,will be held as planned in September and early October. According to Election Commissioner M.S. Gill, the five-phase election exercise, the largest in the world involving 600million voters, will be held on the 4th, 11th, 17th, and 24th ofSeptember and the 1st of October. Gill said the staggering of the polls was to facilitatemovement of para-military personnel from one part of the country toanother in the ''difficult'' circumstances. Sunday's announcement came as normalcy was reported returningto Kargil, with the Srinagar-Leh highway, the target of intenseshelling by the Pakistan army for the last two months, reopenedto civilian traffic. But neither Indian civilian nor military authorities have so far hazarded a date by which they expect to expel the armed intruders who are occupying the Kargil heights. One sign of strain on the country's para-military resourceswas Gill's revelation that student members of the voluntaryNational Cadet Corps would be deployed on security duty atpolling booths and sensitive areas. The elections require the manning of nearly 900,000 pollingbooths by five million central and state government officialsdeputed for the task, supported by several hundred thousandpolice and para-military personnel in attendance. Gill said the entire election process would be completed byOctober 8 to enable constitution of a new Lok Sabha (lower house Parliament) by October 21 as required by law. The elections were ordered after the 13-month-old Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government of Prime MinisterAtal Bihari Vajpayee lost a confidence vote on April17 and the Lok Sabha dissolved. By late May, an undeclared war had erupted withPakistan for control of the Kargil heights on the Indian side ofthe Line of Control which divides northern Jammu andKashmir state from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, or Azad Kashmir. As the conflict escalated, an unprecedented possibility loomed - the postponement of elections, a decision which canlegitimately be made only by a sitting Lok Sabha. (Inter Press Service) | |||||||||
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