India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting the main city in Himalayan Kashmir to campaign for his party in the staggered local election in a first such vote since New Delhi stripped the disputed region’s semi-autonomy in 2019.

Voting in the first phase of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will take place today. The 24 assembly constituencies across seven districts of the Union Territory will vote for the first time in an assembly election in 10 years.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, residents are voting in elections that some hope will lead to restoration of the territory's statehood, which ended when it became a federally governed territory in 2019.