Mirwaiz said that this time around the Hurriyat hasn’t issued a boycott call against the election, as it did in the past, because of “serious alterations in the ground situation” following the reading down of Article 370.
New Delhi: In his first remarks on the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has said that the Hurriyat was “not against the idea of elections” in Jammu and Kashmir but linking it to the resolution of the Kashmir issue.
Mirwaiz, who is also the chief cleric of Kashmir, said that this time around the Hurriyat hasn’t issued a boycott call against the election, as it did in the past, because of “serious alterations in the ground situation” following the reading down of Article 370 by the BJP-led Union government in 2019.
“Under these changed circumstances, issuing a boycott call, unlike before 2019, does not seem to carry the sense and effect that it did before. Besides, the people of J&K, baptised by fire from decades old conflict, have gained enough political maturity and wisdom to know what best to do in the current situation,” he said.
The moderate Hurriyat leader, who was again put under house arrest on Friday, May 3, and prevented from delivering the sermon at the historic Jamia Masjid, made these remarks in an interview with Reuters.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.