JAMMU, June 16 — The ruling National Conference leadership is said to be toying with the idea of holding assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir a year ahead than scheduled in case the Centre refused to restore to the state greater autonomy which it enjoyed till 1952.

The assembly elections are due in 2002. Previously the assembly poll was held in the state in September, 1996, and under the state Constitution the elected House has a six-year term.

Informed sources said that the National Conference leaders had of late, realised that the ruling party base had suffered severe erosion and in case the current cash crunch and militancy-related violence continued it might become difficult for the party to win the elections if they are held after two years. The Government’s failure to resolve the problem of unemployment, despite the fact that about 1.58 lakh youths were given jobs during the past three years, poverty and its inability to provide adequate supply of drinking water and electricity have made the ruling party more vulnerable to the electorate’s anger that it was in 1996.

The sources said that to catch the Opposition napping, the National Conference leadership plans to hold the poll in 2001. It knows that the proposed talks between the government and the Hurriyat Conference may not materialise in the near future and even if the talks were held they may not prove meaningful. As such, the ruling party does not intend to wait till the Hurriyat decides to contest the elections.

The National Conference plans to go to the people with two major issues. One, the Centre refused to restore to the state’s pre-1953 constitutional status for which the ruling party had done a lot of spade sork. It is in this connection that a special session of the state legislature is being convened in Srinagar from June 19 to adopt a motion regarding the acceptance of the state Autonomy Committee report. Once this motion is adopted the National Conference can tell people that it has fulfilled its poll manifesto and it is the Central Government that has rejected the “demand for greater autonomy.

Secondly, the state has been facing an unprecedented cash crunch for the past over two years. The National Conference has figures and facts which it will use to convince the people that the financial crisis was result of the financial squeeze ordered by the Centre. It has already informed the people that while the Centre waived off over Rs 8000 crore in the case of Punjab, but it did not accept the Jammu and Kashmir Government’s plea for waiving off the Rs 1275 crore loan on which the state has to spend Rs 600 crore annually as interest on the loan.

As far as security-related matters are concerned, the ruling party has collected enough material which it can use to its advantage during any election campaign. This material includes the allegation that the Centre refused to reimburse in full security-related expenses which had forced the state government to divert funds from one sector to the other.