PAGD writes to SEC over the confinement of its candidates
By: Tariq Shah VOV
Srinagar
After several tweets by Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti about how their candidates were being confined in the security camps in the name of security and not allowed to campaign and meet the people of their segments.
Various television channels and media reports have said that dozens of candidates of PAGD talked to them in the security enclosures and said that while they are not allowed to move out their counterparts in the same villages especially the BJP candidates were being allowed to campaign and provided with a lot of security to do this exercise.
On Saturday Dr. Farooq Abdullah who is heading the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) has written to Jammu and Kashmir’s State Election Commissioner K.K. Sharma complained that the candidates put by seven-party conglomerates are not allowed to campaign.
In the letter he said that soon after filing of the nominations, PAGD candidates were being taken to secure locations and not allowed to meet anyone when some of them approached police that they wanted to campaign they were not allowed in the name of security.
“They are not allowed to canvas, they are completely out of touch with those from whom they are supposed to seek votes,” reads the letter.
The PAGD has further written that security challenges are not new in J-K and successive regimes in J-K had structures in place which ensured security for all contestants irrespective of the ideology they espoused or the parties they represented.
“These challenges are not new but have been painfully persisting for the last three decades. But the government had structures in place which ensured security for all contestants irrespective of the ideology they espoused or the parties they represented. Our parties have been in power in the past and have had the opportunity to head and run the government. We are aware of the challenges posed in the realm of security in a place beset by violence. These challenges are not new but have been painfully persisting for the last three decades. But the government had structures in place which ensured security for all contestants irrespective of the ideology they espoused or the parties they represented,” the letter written by Farooq Abdullah said.
“This comes across more like an attempt to interfere in the democratic process than any real concern for the wellbeing of the contestants. Security cannot and should not be used as a tool or an excuse to interfere in democratic processes,” reads the letter.
“May I add that the evolution of democracy in J and K is distinctive compared to any other part of the country. The journey is a bloodied journey, soaked in the blood of thousands of political workers who have laid down their lives for the sake of democracy. It is a desecration of those sacrifices when the very conflict that consumed their lives is used as an alibi to customize democracy. Democracy is still in a state of fragility in J and K. Governments come and go.
No government has the right to alter the institutional foundations of democracy in J and K, nourished by the sacrifices of thousands of political workers,” the letter reads.
