{"id":303961,"date":"2018-10-10T05:03:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T05:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=303961"},"modified":"2018-10-10T05:03:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T05:03:46","slug":"jammu-and-kashmir-second-phase-of-municipal-elections-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/jammu-and-kashmir-second-phase-of-municipal-elections-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Jammu and Kashmir: Second Phase of Municipal elections begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-303962 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/voting_election_poll-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"465\" height=\"310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/voting_election_poll-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/voting_election_poll-696x464.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/voting_election_poll-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/voting_election_poll.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 465px) 100vw, 465px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Polling for the second phase of the municipal elections began on Wednesday in Jammu and Kashmir.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Voting began at 6 am amid stringent security arrangements and will conclude at 4pm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">According to the officials, voting would take place at 544 polling stations across the state, 1,029 candidates &#8211; 881 in Jammu division and 148 in Kashmir division &#8211; are in the fray for 263 municipal wards, including 49 in Kashmir and 214 in Jammu.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">A total 65 have won the polls uncontested, including 61 from Kashmir Valley. while in 56 wards all in the valley &#8211; no nomination was received, so no polling is taking place in those places, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Massive security arrangements have been put in place to ensure smooth conduct of the polls.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The government has declared holiday on a poll day in the municipal areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah expressed concerns about opening of polling booths at 6AM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWhy are polling booths opening at 6AM? If I believed conspiracy theories I\u2019d believe it\u2019s because journalists won\u2019t be around to verify the genuineness of voters at that very early hour,\u201d Abdullah tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Municipal elections are taking place in the state after a gap of 13 years. But two key parties in the state, the National Conference (NC) and the People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP), have abstained from the elections over the contentious issue of Article 35A.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polling for the second phase of the municipal elections began on Wednesday in Jammu and Kashmir. Voting began at 6 am amid stringent security arrangements and will conclude at 4pm. According to the officials, voting would take place at 544 polling stations across the state, 1,029 candidates &#8211; 881 in Jammu division and 148 in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":303962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2016,2009,2014],"tags":[1141,5457],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303963,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303961\/revisions\/303963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/303962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}