Srinagar, Nov 25 (GNS):  Six months after being ousted as Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) through a no-confidence motion, Junaid Azim Mattu was elected to the office again on Wednesday.  

Mattu, who got 44 votes, defeated Sheikh Imran, a former deputy mayor who was also removed from office last year through a no-confidence motion, got seven votes, officials said. Nineteen corporators abstained from voting, they added.

Meanwhile, the National Conference termed the Mayoral election as a farce play that bulldozed established democratic and constitutional norms setting a lowest benchmark in the country for immoral politics.

In a statement issued here to GNS, the party said: “It neatly fits the Anti Kashmir agenda of BJP, RSS its ilk to have dysfunctional institutions in Kashmir, the farce Mayoral Election to SMC has become a newest causality of the opportunistic politics played by BJP and its ilk which has undermined and played with all existing constitutional norms, and political propriety, the due process demanded,” said party Spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar while condemning the thrashing of deputy mayor SMC and other Corporators by Police. “It is yet another low and indisputably a blot on democracy.  The entire process was nothing near to being an election, it was a selection.  All the established democratic norms were played with and fine tuned to ensure that BJPs own man gets elected to the coveted position.  The person who has been denigrating NC candidates for cobbling up with BJP to attain the coveted mayor post, contrarily it is he who has been hobnobbing with BJP, the 3-line party whip letter of BJP asking its elected corporators and affiliates to vote for him says it all,” he said.

While condemning the beating of NC corporators by the BJP and its affiliate corporators at SMC during the voting process, Imran said the unruly behavior of BJP, and its ilk as usual goes unattended on account of their immediacy with the power circles. “Amidst all this it is the due democratic process that has been at the relieving end.  The SMC it goes without saying has become an arena of everyday cockfights, foul political shenanigans and bickering.  The entire process, however seamlessly BJP thinks it has carried it out, stands unraveled before people,” he said.

 “The aversion of ruling BJP towards democratic process makes it clear that it is up to some mischief in the forthcoming DDC elections and By-elections to SMC ,” he said.  (GNS)   

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