The Hindu : National : Sopore citizens' council not to boycott polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 12, 2005

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National

Sopore citizens' council not to boycott polls

By Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR, JAN. 11. In a significant development, the Citizens Council of the Sopore town in north Kashmir has decided to participate in the coming local body elections which was notified on Monday.

The civic body elections are being held after 28 years.

The Council's statement in the local newspapers said a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Parvez Ahmed and it was unanimously decided to take part in the elections.

It said development of Sopore, addressing unemployment and making Sofi Akbar Hospital functional would be its top priority.

The Council expressed dismay over the neglect of the town by successive governments. "The present coalition Government is surviving on hollow slogans," it charged.

The statement said nobody would be allowed to rig the elections and that it was not associated with any political party and was an "independent body."

No separatist organisation has reacted to the statement so far.

Boycott call

Separatist organisations have called for a boycott of the polls. The United Jehad Council, the Muzaffarabad-based alliance of militant organisations led by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen supreme commander, Syed Salahuddin, was the first to give the call.

Apart from the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (JKDFP), the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front(JKLF) and the Jammu and Kashmir Jamiat-e-Ahlihadees, in a joint statement, termed the election as an "useless exercise" and "against the interest of the people," appealed to the people to boycott it at every level.

The acting president of the JKHCBA, Ghulam Nabi Dar, the JKLF chairman, Mohammad Yaseen Malik, and the JKDFP chief, Shabir Ahmad Shah, said they would launch an anti-election campaign.

Luv Puri reports from Jammu:

The National Conference today decided to participate in the forthcoming civic body polls, after a majority of the party leaders in the working committee decided in favour of the party's participation in the democratic exercise.

A hectic bout of deliberations of its working committee preceded the party's announcement that it would participate in the polls, while ignoring the appeal of several senior leaders for a boycott.

After the the working committee meeting, the NC president, Omar Abdullah, announced the decision here today.

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