A story of Kashmir through 5 assembly elections
Jammu and Kashmir has voted in 12 assembly elections when it was a full-fledged state. Each election has had its significance, but five polls stand out for their historic importance — right from the first in 1951 to the last in 2014
prativad 
A scenic beauty par excellence, Jammu and Kashmir has been a special story in India, mostly for political reasons. It goes to the polls after 10 years in three phases on September 18, 25 and October 1. Results will be declared on October 8, when votes polled in Haryana state election will also be counted.
The upcoming assembly polls are significant in many ways. It is the first election since the Narendra Modi government ended its special status by abrogating Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. It is the first election since it lost its statehood to become a Union Territory, losing Ladakh as its part, which became a separate Union Territory. It is also the first election after a fresh delimitation of assembly, and the first election after 1951 to be held without a Jammu and Kashmir constitution in force.
How Jammu and Kashmir voted in its first assembly election
Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India under dramatic circumstances. The British had left the country sharply divided into hundreds of practically sovereign units in the form of princely states. Jammu and Kashmir was a big one, with its king Hari Singh harbouring the ambition of making it ‘the Switzerland of the East’.
Authorised under the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the king initially decided to remain independent but newly formed Pakistan invaded Kashmir only two months after the British partitioned India and left. Facing a certain defeat, the king acceded to India, signing the Instrument of Accession, similar to those signed by hundreds others. By the time, Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India, Pakistan had captured about a third of the princely state. That remains with Pakistan as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) — though Pakistan has attempted to integrate its regions with its own territory through various instruments.
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