CONTENTS

IN the first municipal elections held in Jammu and Kashmir in 15 years, the Sheikh Abdullah-inspired United Front composed mainly of the outlawed Plebiscite Front and Mirwaiz Farooq's Awami Action Committee has swept the polls. In almost all the towns in the Kashmir Valley, all but a stray seat or two have been won by the United Front. In Srinagar itself, 11 of the 28 seats in the Municipal Council have been won uncontested by the United Plebiscite Front and Mirwaiz Farooq's Awami Action Committee has swept the Front. The Congress did not contest the polls in the Valley on the specious plea that it did not want to infuse politics into the bread-and-butter issues of civic life. In Jammu, however, the Congress felt no such moral pangs about being 'political'. But, unfortunately, its political sense failed it even in Jammu where it got trounced by the Jan Sangh-Praja Parishad combine. In the Valley the Jamaat-c-Islami, which is branded as an untouchable 'commu- nal' and 'reactionary' party in other parts of the country by the Congress but was tacitly backed by it in the Kashmir civic elections, has been given' a sound drubbing. In the town of Sopore, which was reputed to be the Jamaat's stronghold, all the 11 seats went to the United Front. In Baramulla, the two scats that could not be wrested by the United Front went to independents. In Anantnag, the Jamaat-e-Islami managed to get one seat, the other eight going to the United Front.