J&K CM Omar Abdullah cautions ECI against hasty SIR exercise

Chief minister Omar Abdullah on Monday cautioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) against rushing into a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying the exercise should be undertaken only after the Bihar assembly elections.

He warned that any haste in conducting the SIR could raise questions about the ECI’s independence and credibility and also create the perception that the the poll panel is acting under political influence.

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Speaking to media persons in Srinagar, Omar Abdullah, while referring to the previous delimitation in Jammu and Kashmir, alleged that it was carried out to benefit one political party. “The way new seats were carved out and constituencies redrawn clearly showed bias,” he added.

He advised the ECI to avoid repeating “such a mistake”.

“There are already apprehensions about SIR in Bihar. It is not clear yet whether there will be any benefits of this exercise for those undertaking it. Let the elections in Bihar be completed, then we will see whether it was beneficial at all. Then we can talk about implementing it in the rest of the country,” he said.

The chief minister rubbished the suggestions that there was an understanding between the ruling National Conference (NC) and the BJP for the election to the four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir. The NC has won three seats in the elections while the BJP managed to bag one seat.

“Please understand that the NC is the only party in Jammu and Kashmir that takes the BJP head-on in the elections. Nobody else is doing that. We are not those who enter into secret pacts. If we had to do it, we would have done it openly. I did not support the Vajpayee government behind closed doors; I joined the NDA. Whether it was right or wrong, is another issue,” the chief minister said.

Omar said he wants the relations between his government and the Centre to be cordial so that governance is not affected. He, however, pointed out that there is a huge difference in relations between governments and relations between the NC and the BJP. “There is no relation between the NC and the BJP, and it will not be there in future also.”

Responding to Peoples Conference MLA Sajjad Lone’s accusation that the Rajya Sabha polls were a “fixed match”, he said he did not understand why a person would comment on an election when he was not even ready to take part in. “Let him first say what was his compulsion to help the BJP. If he did not want match fixing to take place, he should have used his vote,” he said.

“The difficulty started with Lone abstaining from polls. The BJP needed only 29 after that, and they had 28. One or two would have been easy for them, but I didn’t think they would get four, he said, adding, “He would like the names of the MLAs who cross-voted or deliberately wasted their votes to come out in public”.