Srinagar, India (AP) โ In a significant move ahead of local elections, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Indian-administered Kashmir today, reinforcing his party’s presence in the region. The visit comes amid heightened security measures, with authorities deploying thousands of personnel to ensure safety during the campaign activities.
Modiโs visit to Srinagar city in the Kashmir Valley โ the heartland of decades of anti-India rebellion โ comes amid strong public opposition there to New Delhiโs changes five years back. That move revoked the regionโs semi-autonomous status, annulled its separate constitution, downgraded and split the former state into two centrally governed union territoriesโ Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir โ and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.
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The region has since remained on edge with civil liberties curbed and media freedoms gagged.
Authorities laid razor wires and erected road checkpoints to close the roads leading to the venue of Modiโs election rally in Srinagarโs main commercial center. Armed paramilitary troops and police in flak jackets patrolled the area, snipers and sharpshooters were positioned atop buildings near the venue.
The multistage election will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a local legislature, called an assembly, instead of remaining under New Delhiโs direct rule.
Kashmir has been at the heart of a conflict between India and Pakistan after British rule of the subcontinent ended in 1947 with the creation of the two rival countries. Both administer part of it but claim the territory in its entirety.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhiโs rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebelsโ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the insurgency is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, which many Kashmiri Muslims consider a legitimate freedom struggle.
Indiaโs ruling BJP has a strong political base in the regionโs Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu that largely favor the 2019 changes and has won multiple seats from there in the past elections. But it is weak in the Kashmir Valley where the BJP has never won a seat.
The party has fielded only 19 candidates for the 47 seats in the valley while it is contesting all 43 seats in Jammu.
Modiโs party is not officially aligned with any local group, but many politicians believe it is tacitly supporting some parties and independent candidates in the Kashmir Valley who privately agree with it.
The regionโs main pro-India political parties accused the BJP of trying to manipulate the election and fragment the valleyโs vote through independents. About 43% of 503 candidates contesting in the Kashmir Valley are independents, in contrast to 35% in Jammu.
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