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all 76 seats in Legislative Assembly 39 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 67.2% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elections for the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held over June 1977, [1] which are generally regarded as the first 'free and fair' elections in the state. [2] Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, newly revived from the former Plebiscite Front, won an overwhelming majority and re-elected Sheikh Abdullah as the Chief Minister. [3]
After reaching the 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord, Sheikh Abdullah was elected as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir by the ruling Indian National Congress party in the state legislature (which had in fact been the original National Conference founded by Abdullah in 1930s but merged into Congress before the 1967 elections). Abdullah remained in power during the National Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. After the Emergency was lifted, the Janata Party came to power in the Centre in the 1977 general election. [4]
Elections were called for the state Legislative Assembly in June 1977. Sheikh Abdullah now revived the National Conference from the erstwhile Plebiscite Front. The National Conference and Congress met head-on as equals, the first time such an electoral contest occurred since the State's Accession in 1947. The Prime Minister Morarji Desai (of the Janata Party) took steps to strengthen security in the state and declared that any rigging would be severely punished. This had a 'salutary effect' in the political atmosphere in the state witnessing its first 'free and fair' election. [5]
The revival of the National Conference was greeted with great enthusiasm in the Kashmir Valley. In the words of Kashmiri, "the entire valley was red with N. C. flags. Every house and every market stood decorated with bunting." [2]
The National Conference won the majority in the Assembly with 47 of the 76 seats. [6] Whereas it won 40 of the 42 seats in the Kashmir Valley, it was able to win only 7 seats out of 32 in the Jammu province. [7]
The Indian National Congress (former National Conference, which had been in power since the State's accession) was reduced to third place, winning 11 seats in Jammu and none in the Valley. [7]
The Janata Party (which had incorporated the former Jammu Praja Parishad) won 13 seats, its best performance so far. In addition to 11 seats in Jammu, it won 2 seats in the Valley for the first time. [7]
Also significant is the fact that Jamaat-e-Islami won only one seat, down from 5 seats in the previous Assembly. [6]
 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
| Jammu & Kashmir National Conference | 807,166 | 46.22 | 47 | 0 | |
| Janata Party | 414,259 | 23.72 | 13 | New | |
| Indian National Congress (R) | 294,911 | 16.89 | 11 |  47 | |
| Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir | 62,654 | 3.59 | 1 | 4 | |
| Others | 1,903 | 0.11 | 0 | 0 | |
| Independents | 165,477 | 9.48 | 4 |  1 | |
| Total | 1,746,370 | 100.00 | 76 | 1 | |
| Valid votes | 1,746,370 | 96.80 | |||
| Invalid/blank votes | 57,734 | 3.20 | |||
| Total votes | 1,804,104 | 100.00 | |||
| Registered voters/turnout | 2,684,992 | 67.19 | |||
| Source: ECI [8] | |||||
Sheikh Abdullah was sworn in as the Chief Minister of the State following the election. Mirza Afzal Beg was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir .
By the end of the 1970s, the seventy-year-old Sheikh Abdullah anointed his son Farooq Abdullah as his successor. Following Sheikh's death in 1982, Farooq Abdullah was appointed as the Chief Minister. The National Conference government completed a full five-year term. [9]
Before his death, Sheikh Abdullah initiated a controversial 'Grant of Permit for Resettlement' bill in the State's Legislative Assembly. As per the bill, any state subject of Jammu and Kashmir before 14 May 1954 or any of his descendants could apply for resettlement in the State provided they swore allegiance to both the Indian Constitution and the Constitution of the State. The bill was passed by the Legislative Assembly after Sheikh's death, but it aroused fears among the Hindus of Jammu that Pakistani sympathizers and agents could cross into the State and create tensions. The Central government forced Farooq Abdullah to refer the bill to the Supreme Court of India where it has been put into cold storage. [10]
All the elections held in Jammu and Kashmir before 1977 were plagued with corrupt electoral practices. [11] The elections of 1977 represented a 'democratic breakthrough', according to scholar Steve Widmalm. Politician Bhim Singh stated, 'Morarji Desai openly declared that anyone who would attempt to pursue some form of rigging would be severely punished, and this was quite effective'. The Congress party in the Central Government has therefore been regarded as an obstacle to the State's democratic functioning. The party regarded Jammu and Kashmir to be a sensitive border state, which was not 'ready for democracy'. Building Indian nationalism was considered far more important. Activist Balraj Puri has disagreed with the sentiment. In his view, democratic functioning was indeed a prerequisite to integration and national unity. As a result of the democratization process, he has asserted that there were ten years of peace with 'no fundamentalism, no secessionism, and no communalism'. JKLF's Amanullah Khan has also endorsed the assessment. The observers he sent to the Kashmir Valley during the early 1980s reported that the situation was not conducive to inciting a rebellion. [12] Journalist Tavleen Singh who covered the subsequent Assembly election in 1983 asked people wherever she went whether they regarded the plebiscite as an issue. 'Almost everywhere the answer was an emphatic no. People said that the past was dead and they were participating in this election as Indians,' she recounted. [13]
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) is a regional political party in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir union territory and Ladakh. Founded as the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference by Sheikh Abdullah and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas in 1932 in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the organisation renamed itself to National Conference in 1939 in order to represent all the people of the state. It supported the accession of the princely state to India in 1947. Prior to that, in 1941, a group led by Ghulam Abbas broke off from the National Conference and revived the old Muslim Conference. The revived Muslim Conference supported the accession of the princely state to Pakistan and led the movement for Azad Kashmir.
Farooq Abdullah is an Indian politician and the current president of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference. He has served as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on several occasions since 1982, and as the union minister for New and Renewable Energy between 2009 and 2014. He is the son of the 1st elected chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah. His son is the current chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was an Indian politician who played a central role in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir. Abdullah was the founding leader of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference and the 1st elected Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir after its accession to India. He agitated against the rule of the Maharaja Hari Singh and urged self-rule for Kashmir. He is also known as Sher-e-Kashmir.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a formerly armed, political separatist organisation active in both the Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered territories of Kashmir. It was founded by Amanullah Khan, with Maqbool Bhat also credited as a co-founder. Originally a militant wing of the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the organization officially changed its name to the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in Birmingham, England on 29 May 1977; from then until 1994 it was an active Kashmiri militant organization. The JKLF first established branches in several cities and towns of the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, as well as in the United States and across the Middle East. In 1982, it established a branch in the Pakistani-administered territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and by 1987, it had established a branch in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley.
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, and also between China and India in the northeastern portion of the region. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 55% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier, and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 30% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 15% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector.
The following is a timeline of the Kashmir conflict, a territorial conflict between India, Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, China. India and Pakistan have been involved in four wars and several border skirmishes over the issue.
The Indira–Sheikh Accord, also known as the Indira–Abdullah Accord, was an accord between Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, and Sheikh Abdullah, leader of the Plebiscite Front. The accord decided the terms under which Abdullah would reenter the politics of Kashmir. It allowed Abdullah to become the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir again after 22 years and enabled competitive politics in the State.
The Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir or Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JIJK) is an Islamic political party based in the city of Srinagar in the Indian administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is distinct from the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.The organisation's stated position on the Kashmir conflict is that Kashmir is a disputed territory and the issue must be sorted as per UN or through tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and representatives of Kashmir.
Elections for the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held over seven days in November and December 2008. The previous government led by the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP) in coalition with the Indian National Congress (INC) collapsed when the PDP withdrew. Following the election, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (NC) agreed on a coalition with Congress and their leader, Omar Abdullah became the state's youngest-ever Chief Minister at 38.
The All Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front, or Plebiscite Front, was a political party in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir that called for a "popular plebiscite" to decide if the state should remain part of India, join Pakistan or become independent. The patron of the party was Sheikh Abdullah, the former Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and chief of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, even though he never formally joined it. The founder of the party was Mirza Afzal Beg.
Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg was a Kashmiri politician who served as the first deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 1975 to 1977 and was a member of Constituent Assembly of India from 1946 to 1952. Beg held a ministerial position in the pre-independence government of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1945 to 1947 and later served as the Revenue minister in the post-independence government led by Sheikh Abdullah from 1948 to 1953.
Elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are conducted in accordance with the Constitution of India to elect the representatives of various bodies at national, state and district levels including the 114 seat unicameral Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly and the Parliament of India. The first elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir took place between 28 November and 19 December 2020 in the form of by-elections to District Development Councils and municipal and panchayat level bodies. A fresh delimitation process for assembly constituencies began in February–March 2020.
Election for the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held on 23 March 1987. Farooq Abdullah was reappointed as the Chief Minister.
Elections for the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held over October 1983. The Jammu & Kashmir National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah was appointed Chief Minister.
The Jammu Praja Parishad was a political party active in the Jammu Division of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It was founded in November 1947 by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist Balraj Madhok, and served as the main opposition party in the state. It maintained close ties with Bharatiya Jana Sangh during its lifetime and merged with the latter in 1963. Its main activity was to campaign for the close integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India and oppose the special status granted to the state under the Article 370 of the Indian constitution. After its merger with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the precursor of the present day Bharatiya Janata Party, the party gradually rose in stature. As an integral part of the Bharatiya Janata Party, it was a partner in the ruling coalition led by the People's Democratic Party.
The Muslim United Front (MUF) was a 'polyglot coalition' of Islamic Kashmiri political parties that contested the 1987 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election in the erstwhile Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Jamaat-e-Islami of Jammu and Kashmir was a key constituent party of the coalition. The MUF won four Assembly seats in the 1987 election. However, widespread rigging of the election by the ruling National Conference party was reported. In the absence of such rigging, commentators believe that it could have won fifteen to twenty seats, a contention admitted by the National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah.
The first elections for the Legislative Assembly of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir under its own Constitution were held in March–June 1957. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was appointed Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Elections for the Constituent Assembly of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held in September–October 1951. Sheikh Abdullah was appointed the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Following frictions with various groups such as the Jammu Praja Parishad, Abdullah was dismissed in August 1953 and imprisoned. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was appointed as the next prime minister.
The following is a timeline of the Kashmir conflict during the period 1846–1946.
Elections in India in 1977 included Legislative Assembly elections in several Indian states, including Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
