‘PDP will boycott panchayat polls over Article 35A’: Mehbooba Mufti

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will boycott the municipal and panchayat elections in October, party chief Mehbooba Mufti said on Monday, citing an “atmosphere of fear” due to the “assault on the special constitutional position” of Jammu and Kashmir.The announcement came after a meeting of top PDP leaders at Mufti’s residence in Srinagar earlier.The former chief minister said that the linking of the local body elections with an Article 35A case in Supreme Court “has created serious apprehensions in the minds of people who genuinely see it as assault on the special constitutional position of the state”.“It was felt that any attempt to impose any electoral exercise in the current atmosphere of fear and apprehension would seriously erode the credibility of the process and institutions. It would defeat the very purpose of it,” she said.