Jammu, Feb. 22 -- Former bureaucrat Shantmanu, on Saturday, was sworn in as the state election commissioner of Jammu and Kashmir for a term of five years. The lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha administered the oath of office to Shantmanu at Lok Bhawan here. The oath-taking ceremony was attended by chief minister Omar Abdullah and his cabinet colleagues, including deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary and speaker Abdul Rahim Rather. Chief secretary Atal Dulloo and Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat were also present. A 1991-batch officer of the AGMUT cadre who recently retired as additional chief secretary and financial commissioner in J&K, Shantmanu, has replaced BR Sharma, who completed his tenure in April 2024. The appointment of Shantmanu has now paved way for the much awaited elections of local bodies and panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir While the tenure of municipal councils ended in October-November 2023, the panchayats and block development councils completed their five-year term on January 9, 2024. With the tenures of district development councils ending on February 24, there will be essentially no elected local bodies functioning in J&K. Officials said local body elections could not be conducted on time due to multiple factors, including the delimitation exercise and the reservation of wards for Other Backward Classes. Recently, Omar had said that his government was making necessary arrangements to hold elections at the earliest, but the vacancy of the SEC was a major hurdle....