What’s In Store FOR 2023?
With lot many challenges and expectations we have year 2023 ahead to see what is in store for the people of J&K

Year 2023 has arrived with hopes and aspirations of millions of people to see a better tomorrow, find peace, find jobs, good friends, partners etc. Youth are particularly hoping to find employment, good revenue generating avenues, better work conditions, better placements and productivity. However, unemployment remains the most talked about topic in India, especially in Kashmir with J&K leading the list. Unemployment is a very serious issue not only in India but in the whole world and there are millions out there who do not have employment. Besides, it is very severe in India because of the growing population and rising demand for jobs.
The three basic needs of human beings are – food, home and clothing. All these needs can be properly fulfilled only if a person has financial avenues which is only possible if there are ways, employment and some paid occupation. However, there are many people in the world and our country too who have failed to secure a job. As a result, they have an insignificant source of income.
An eye for Assembly elections?
2022, like the previous year, started with hectic political activities. Every week someone joins some mainstream party. He is being referred to as a senior leader. He is turbanized. He is allowed to address the media. The show has been going on for the last four years. When Ghulam Nabi Azad left Congress and formed Democratic Azad Party he almost took all Congress party members along. They were all turbanized. Now some of the Azad party leaders are leaving Azad and joining other parties. This exercise of joining brings a lot of joy among the leaders of the political parties. All these efforts are made with the hope that the polls will be held in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the hope of the polls they even gave statements. Azad says statehood should be restored before the polls. In one of his political meetings, Omar Abdullah said once in power he would repeal the contentious Public Safety Act (PSA). This evoked huge debate between a number of spokespersons of different political parties. But the debate is not whether Omar can remove the PSA or not. The discourse is whether elections will be conducted in J&K in 2013 or not.
In March 2022, Home Minister Amit Shah said assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held once the delimitation exercise is over and after consultation with political parties. “We have no interest in keeping Jammu and Kashmir under President’s Rule,” Shah said in Lok Sabha while responding to concerns raised by members on Kashmir during the discussion.
Jammu and Kashmir has been without an Assembly since November 2018 when the then Legislative Assembly was dissolved by then Governor Satya Pal Malik after the PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form the government. Governor’s rule was imposed in J&K in June 2018 after the BJP pulled out of the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government.
For the past three years, the BJP leaders have been saying that elections in J&K will be held after the Delimitation Commission completes its exercise and gives its report. On May 6 this year, the Delimitation Commission finalized its two-year long exercise, recommending the creation of six additional assembly constituencies in the Jammu region and one more in the Kashmir valley. It was expected that the completion of the process of controversial redrawing of the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir would pave the way for assembly elections in the Union Territory (UT), but nothing moved forward on the electoral front. The ECI then started work on the revised voter list. It too was completed and issued in October 2022 but no date for the polls are set. In Kashmir many are of the view that J&K will not see polls for long as the BJP government has free hand in the UT. Will the ECI prove them wrong in 2023?
Will detained journalist be released?
This year also marked a tough time for the journalists. After the closure of the Kashmir Press Club early this year, two journalists were booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a law under which a person can be detained for up to two years without a trial. On January 5 this year, Sajad Gul, 27, was arrested from his home in North Kashmir’s Bandipora district. He was later booked under PSA and sent to a jail outside Kashmir. On February 4, senior journalist Fahad Shah, was arrested and booked under PSA and shifted to a jail outside for “glorifying terrorism and spreading fake news.”
Return of Kashmiri Pandits ?
While there is a registered decline in militant attacks, 2022 also saw targeted killings of off duty police men and minority community members. Around 14 people belonging to minority communities including three Kashmiri Pandits were killed. The killings triggered an exodus of Kashmiri Pandit employees, posted in Kashmir under the Prime Minister’s Employment Package. The employees have been protesting in Jammu for more than 250 days now. They seek relocation of their posts to Jammu. The government is not relenting on this. In 2023, the biggest challenge to the government is to motivate the minority Kashmiri Pandit employees to return to Kashmir. The government says peace has been restored in Kashmir. But Dr. Farooq Abdullah counters: “if peace was restored in Kashmir then why Kashmiri Pandit employees are not re-joining their duties in Kashmir?.”
BJP president Ravinder Raina also has this counter for the government: “Rahul Bhat was killed inside the office. I am appealing to Lt Governor with all humility to have a meeting with Kashmiri Pandit employees posted in Kashmir and listen to them. Once you hear them you will realize the ground situation.” Raina says Jammu and Kashmir is fighting a war for the past 35 years and it is in a “state of war” and the BJP will not allow anyone to make Kashmiri Pandits scapegoat.
Challenges ?
Abrogation of Article 370, delimitation, and Gupkar alliance and its subsequent breaking up have drastically changed the political landscape of J&K. And it is against a sensitive security situation that the Assembly polls in the region are to be conducted.
The security agencies and the Election Commission (EC) have a tough challenge on their hands. Security has already been stepped up. The EC has completed the revision of electoral rolls after the report of the delimitation commission was submitted. It has resulted in the addition of over seven lakh new voters in the UT.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) took stock of the situation at a recent meeting. The ministry has ordered the agencies to create a conducive environment in the UT if polls are held this year. Apart from the security concerns, the Union Home Minister was also apprised of the development projects in the UTs of J&K and Ladakh. Investment in J&K has declined by over half in the last four years, data released by the MHA has revealed.
Democracy and development have to go hand in hand. The BJP has a huge task to bring about both in the changed political and demographic scenario.
And as the Bharat Jodo Yatra enters the UT, the Congress will try to garner the support of “like-minded” parties ahead of the elections. But the internal rift in the Gupkar alliance could stand BJP in good stead.
Like politicians who are hopeful that Assembly polls will be held next year, some of the journalists are hopeful that Kashmir Press Club will be restored and detained journalists released, the government is hopeful Kashmiri Pandit employees will return to the Valley. There is optimism all around.