The vote will see a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the local assembly, with a chief minister at the top heading a council of ministers. But Kashmir will continue to be a “Union Territory” — a region directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament remaining its main legislator.

Voters queued 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.

The phased election for choosing a local government in Jammu and Kashmir has opened in the first such vote since Indian PM Narendra Modi’s government stripped the disputed region of its special status