By Staff Reporter
MUZAFFARABAD: Leaders of a proscribed political alliance in Azad Kashmir are pressing supporters to boycott next month’s regional elections, with officials accusing them of stoking unrest to preserve their own relevance as a weeks-long general strike begins to unravel.
In a video circulating widely on social media, a man identified by the divisional administration as Umar Nazir Kashmiri — a leader of the banned Joint Awami Action Committee — can be heard addressing a crowd: “After the way this game has been played with us, will you still take part in this sham and fraudulent election?” The crowd answered with a resounding no.
Poonch divisional commissioner Sardar Waheed Khan confirmed the speaker’s identity and offered a candid assessment of the committee’s calculus. “They think that if people turn towards electioneering, the JAAC and its cause will lose relevance,” Khan said.
The JAAC, whose leadership has been in a prolonged standoff with the Azad Jammu Kashmir government over economic grievances, has in recent weeks shifted to what officials describe as emotionally charged rhetoric designed to keep its base mobilised as grassroots momentum behind the strike fades.
Signs of that fading were visible on the streets of Muzaffarabad on Sunday, where public life began, tentatively, to resume.
Buses and passenger vehicles that had sat idle for nearly three weeks started returning to terminals near the city’s main bus stand. Most markets remained shuttered, though a government official attributed that to the weekly trading holiday rather than to the ongoing agitation, expressing confidence that commercial activity would normalise by Monday.
Fuel emerged as the immediate constraint on a fuller return to normalcy. Save for a handful of outlets, petrol stations remained closed across the city on Sunday. Transporters said they could not fully restore services on all routes until the government permitted fuel suppliers to resume regular operations — a resolution officials said was anticipated by Monday.
The picture reflected a broader, if still fragile, return to routine across Azad Jammu Kashmir, where the JAAC-led strike had shuttered businesses and paralysed transport for several weeks.
Meanwhile, the AJK legislatures are scheduled to meet on Monday for the presentation of the territory’s annual budget — a session expected to be a brief and sparsely attended formality.
Finance and Inland Revenue Minister Chaudhry Qasim Majeed will table a budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year with a proposed outlay of Rs286 billion, comprising Rs250 billion in recurring expenditure and Rs36 billion earmarked for development, according to official sources.
The minister will simultaneously lay before the assembly revised estimates for the outgoing fiscal year, shrinking the current budget’s effective size to Rs262.165 billion from the Rs310.2 billion approved by the coalition government in June last year, when Rs49 billion had been set aside for development. The revised figures allocate Rs230 billion to recurring costs and Rs32.165 billion to development.
Few lawmakers are expected in their seats. With general elections weeks away, most members of the Legislative Assembly are occupied with campaigning in their constituencies.
The budget is widely expected to be passed without debate on the day of its presentation — consistent with the convention observed in the final sessions of previous assemblies, when outgoing governments have routinely secured approval of their last budgets before dissolution ahead of elections.
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