The Election Commission of India on Friday announced Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir along with Haryana.

Polling in Jammu and Kashmir will be held on September 18, September 25 and October 1, the three-phase elections being the shortest in the region in recent memory. Haryana votes on October 1. Votes for both Assemblies will be counted on October 4.

The last Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir were held in 2014. The then state was bifurcated into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh — after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been allowed a legislative assembly.

Chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar told reporters: “There will be sufficient forces for the Amarnath Yatra and they will be further strengthened…. More important than forces is (the) trust of the people and their desire to elect a government.

“The desire to participate in the festival of democracy that we witnessed assures us that the people will give a befitting reply to it (increase in militant violence).”

He added: “The only objective is to build upon the foundation laid before the 2024 parliamentary polls.”

Jammu and Kashmir recorded a voter turnout of 58.58 per cent — a 35-year high — during the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.

Since the outbreak of militancy in the former state in 1989, elections have been held in more than three phases to allow an adequate deployment of security forces. Unlike most constituencies in the rest of the country, every candidate in Kashmir gets armedsecurity convoys.

The last government to rule the erstwhile undivided state was a coalition between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP. The last chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, quit in 2018 when the alliance ended over disagreements on thesecurity situation.

In December 2023, the Supreme Court directed that “steps shall be taken” by the poll panel to conduct elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30 this year. Ordinarily, the Election Commission conducts polls within six months of a legislaturebeing dissolved.

The commission denied any delay. “The Amarnathji Yatra concludes on August 19. The Lok Sabha elections ended on June 4…. There is no way one could have gone exactly on the date prescribed,” CEC Kumar said.

Asked why Maharashtra would not be voting along with Haryana, as it had done in 2019, Kumar replied: “That time J&K was not a factor…. Depending on the requirement of forces — which is higher in J&K, we decided to do these two (J&K and Haryana) together.”