REUTERS, New Delhi

India’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld a 2019 decision by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revoke special status for the state of Jammu and Kashmir and set a deadline of September 30 next year for local polls to be held.

India’s only Muslim-majority region, Jammu and Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 75 years of animosity with neighbouring Pakistan since the birth of the two nations in 1947 at independence from colonial rule by Britain.

The unanimous order by a panel of five judges followed more than a dozen petitions challenging the removal of Article 370 of the constitution and a subsequent decision to split the region into two federally administered territories - Jammu and Kashmir, and the Buddhist territory of Ladakh.

It sets the stage for elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which was more closely integrated with India after the government’s move, taken in line with a longstanding promise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Modi called the judgement “a beacon of hope, a promise of a brighter future”.

Pakistan’s caretaker government rejected the verdict.

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