The first election in a decade is planned in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Here’s what to know

Residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir are gearing up for their first regional election in a decade that will allow them to have their own truncated government, also known as a local assembly, instead of remaining under New Delhi's direct rule.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan and claimed in its entirety by both. The Indian-administered part has been on edge since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ended its special status in 2019 and also scrapped its statehood.

The three-phased polls will take place amid a sharp rise in rebel attacks on government forces in parts of Hindu-dominated Jammu areas that have remained relatively peaceful in the three decades of armed rebellion against Indian rule.

With campaigning picking up in the runup to the election, India's main opposition Congress party has formed an alliance to jointly seek the vote with the National Conference, the region's largest pro-India Kashmiri political party. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has a weak political base in the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of decades of anti-India rebellion, while it's strong in Jammu.

Here is what you need to know about the coming election:

Kashmir's future was left unresolved at the end of British colonial rule in 1947 when the Indian subcontinent was divided into predominantly Hindu India and mainly Muslim Pakistan. Pakistan has long pushed for the right to self-determination under a U.N. resolution passed in 1948, which called for a referendum on whether Kashmiris wanted to merge with either country.

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi's rule since 1989, while India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a