Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a party meeting on Friday reviewed preparations for forthcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir and asked party leaders to be prepared for it.
Shah headed a meeting with leaders of the core group of Jammu and Kashmir Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday at his residence in Delhi which lasted for three hours. The meeting was held on a day when veteran Congress leader from Jammu & Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from his party and announced his plans to form a new party in the UT.
BJP leaders said the political situation and the party’s organizational affairs following the delimitation exercise in J-K came up for discussion.
J-K BJP president Ravinder Raina and other senior party leaders, including Union minister Jitendra Singh, Devendra Singh Rana, MP Jugal Kishore and Shakti Raj Parihar, attended the meeting. BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh, in charge of the party’s affairs in the UT, and co-in-charge Ashish Sood, was also present.
Shah asked the party leaders to work for the establishment and of Sangh in J-K. He also discussed the security situation on the ground along with the elections, as well as the targeted killings in the Valley.
J-K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha also held a meeting with Shah on Friday. There is a view that assembly elections in the UT could be held after the completion of the ongoing electoral roll revision exercise. Sources, though, have discounted the possibility of the polls being held this year.
After the removal of Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, it was made into two union territories named Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.