No electoral process has any direct or indirect bearing on Kashmir dispute: Wani
Islamabad: Chairman of Kashmir Institute of International Relations, Altaf Hussain Wani has said that no electoral process whatsoever has any direct or indirect bearing on the future dispensation of the dispute on Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Altaf Hussain Wani, commenting on the Lok Sabha elections being held in occupied Jammu and Kashmir in absence of independent observers and the international media, said, ” The UN Security Council had passed a historic resolution declaring that no electoral process in Kashmir will in any case affect the nature of the dispute as well as its future dispensation”.
The UN Security Council Resolution 122 (1957), he said, stated that “The final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.”
Wani said, the resolution clearly stated that the convening of a Constituent Assembly as recommended by the General Council of the “All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference” and any action that Assembly might attempt to take to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire State or any part thereof would not constitute a disposition of the State.
Similarly, he said, the UNSC also noted in its Resolution 122 of Jan 24, 1957, that sham Indian electoral exercises cannot amount to a substitute for impartial plebiscite envisioned by its resolutions.
“The UN resolution also emphasizes that any elections held in Kashmir cannot prejudice the final disposition of the state or have any bearing on the dispute or its resolution,” he added.
He made it clear that elections were always held with a view to set up an administration to govern the people in order to provide them an orderly life.
“To determine the future of a particular region or people, if and when it is disputed, you don’t hold elections but a plebiscite”, Wani said, adding that unlike elections the plebiscite is held once in the entire life of a nation.
