SRINAGAR, India — Voters lined up outside polling stations in India’s Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to vote in the first provincial election being held in a decade in the Himalayan region that has grappled with years of militant violence. Jammu and Kashmir is India’s only Muslim-majority territory and has been at the center of a dispute with neighboring Pakistan since 1947. Until 2019, Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir had a special status of partial autonomy that was revoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government has said that revoking the region’s special status restored normalcy in the area and helped its development. The contest this time is between regional parties promising to restore the special status, India’s main opposition Congress party which has allied with a prominent regional group, as well as the BJP, which is pitching development and a permanent end to militancy.

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Persons: “, ”, Mohammad Asim Bhat, Narendra Modi’s, ” Modi Organizations: India — Voters, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP Locations: SRINAGAR, India, Jammu, Kashmir, Pakistan, Indian