The National Conference on Saturday threatened to boycott the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections as well as parliamentary polls if the Centre does not take steps to protect Article 35A of the Indian Penal Code. The article, incorporated into the Indian Constitution in 1954, grants special rights and privileges to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

This comes days after party president Farooq Abdullah said they will not participate in the upcoming local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir until the central government clarifies its position. “How can we go to our workers and ask them to come out to vote?” he asked on Saturday. “First do justice to us and clear your [Centre] stand [on Article 35A]. If your plan is that [weakening Jammu and Kashmir’s special position], then our ways are separate. Then we cannot have elections. Not only these [urban local bodies and panchayat] polls, but we will also boycott the assembly and parliamentary elections then.”

Abdullah said the Centre and the state government announced the local bodies and panchayat polls in haste. “First they should have talked to us,” he said. “They should have called every leader that they plan to conduct polls and asked for our opinion. They did not. The prime minister, like Hitler, announced on August 15 from the Red Fort that elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir.”

The state is set to hold its first local body elections since 2011 from October 1. Elections to municipal bodies will take place in four phases between October 1 and October 5, and to panchayats in eight phases between November 8 and December 4. Jammu and Kashmir has been under Governor’s Rule since June.

The party president also criticised National Security Advisor Ajit Doval for saying that having a separate constitution for Jammu and Kashmir was an “aberration”. “Their [Centre’s] intentions are not right,” he said. “They never were. The NSA has said that a separate constitution for Jammu and Kashmir is an aberration. I want to tell him from this stage that if the Constitution is an aberration, then this accession [of Jammu and Kashmir to India] is also an aberration.”

Petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of Article 35A. On August 31, the court adjourned the hearing on them till January 2019 after the Centre and the state administration said hearing the matter now could create law and order problems, particularly during the local body elections.