Vohra upset with JK Govt over ‘attempts’ to delay Panchayat polls

Jammu, Feb 05: Governor N N Vohra is reportedly ‘extremely upset’ with the state Government over its attempts to defer the Panchayat Polls. Governor Vohra as per sources has already conveyed his annoyance to Centre as well as top functionaries of the state Government.
Vohra, as per sources, is seeing red after he repeatedly met the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and nudged her to hold the Panchayat polls which are overdue for a long time now.
The Governor had met the Chief Minister at Raj Bhavan only a few days back and had insisted that the scheduled Panchayat polls should be held on schedule later this month.
The Governor has been continuously meeting the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti over the Panchayat polls and each time the Raj Bhavan has issued statements declaring the same.
“Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday called on Governor NN Vohra at Raj Bhavan here and discussed matters relating to internal security, cross-border firing and panchayat polls. Mehbooba discussed with Vohra the time frame for conducting the panchayat elections, scheduled to be held later this month,” an official spokesperson said on last Thursday evening.
Vohra was also not pleased with the attempts the state Government made to wriggle out of the tight corner of Panchayat polls.
Sources say that Raj Bhavan was not in favour of calling of an all-party meet by the Chief Minister and saw this is an attempt to ‘unnecessarily’ delay the process.
“Yes I can confirm the Governor is not at all happy. He is the constitutional head of the state and it is his duty to fulfill all constitutional obligations. I can tell you if the Panchayat polls are delayed the Governor will be pretty ticked off,” a top source told The Kashmir Monitor.
Multiple sources confirmed that Raj Bhavan was seeing the attempts to defer the Panchayat polls as a ‘surrender’ by the state Government.
Vohra, as per the sources, was also not in favour of the cancellation of the Anantnag bypoll and reportedly came to know about the PDP’s decision through news channels.
This time around, Vohra is piling on all the pressure he can manage to get these polls conducted. Interestingly, a few districts of the Kashmir valley have already got more man power in terms of Central security forces, who have been sent to help with the conduct of the polls.
The Panchayat polls were originally scheduled for early 2016 but were deferred after the death of Hizb Commander Burhan Wani’s death and the violent aftermath.