New Delhi: Even as the elections to around 13,000 panchayat seats in J&K were deferred after the home ministry cited security concerns, discussions between the mainstream opposition parties of the Union Territory and the chief electoral officer (CEO) highlighted a subtle repositioning by these parties, people involved in the talks said.Both NC and PDP had boycotted the first phase of panchayat polls for about 25,000 seats in late 2018 on security grounds and as a mark of protest against the alleged attempt to scarp Article 35(A) but on Tuesday none of them expressed such sentiment. In August 2019, the Centre even withdrew Article 370 (and thus also annulled Article 35(A)) which gave special status to J&K and divided it into two Union Territories.The representatives of NC, PDP, Congress, Panthers Party and the Left — CPI nominee was invited and the CEO later spoke with CPM’s Yousuf Tarigami — told CEO that they weren’t averse to participating in the poll process if senior opposition leaders in detention since August are released to reactivate political activities.These parties also took note of a letter the NC leadership wrote to CEO (two days’ before Tuesday’s meeting) through its central secretary Rattan Lal Gupta, stating that NC “is a strong votary of democratic process” and it “wishes to participate” in the polls provided the “roadblock” (detention of Abdullahs and others) is removed.J&K PCC chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir told ET: “None of the party nominees talked about boycotting the panchayat polls. In fact, none of them wanted to mix the issue of scrapping Article 370 and degrading J&K’s status to two UTs with the polls. We asked for the release of senior leaders so that they can move around, campaign and issue forms to candidates to contest.” He said the Centre and CEO insisted on holding the first phase of panchayat polls on a “nonpolitical” issue but were now in favour of holding the remaining phases on a political basis. “Maybe, they thought we will boycott the elections so that they can fill up seats with BJP members and their handpicked nominees by blaming us and then announce assembly polls similarly. We wonder why elections have been deferred citing security reasons?”Gupta told ET: “NC has a history of making sacrifices for the sake of democratic process. That is why we said senior political leaders, including NC’s top leadership, be released so that NC working committee could meet and formally decide on participation.”The subtle shift in opposition parties’ stand coincides with reports that BJP and the Centre are trying to prop up an assorted “third front” to occupy the electoral space. Tarigami said: “CPM has always favoured holding panchayat polls on a non-political basis. Yet, for the sake of grassroots democracy, our party is open to participating in the elections provided the Centre releases all leaders and restart political process.”The political circles are wondering whether the panchayat polls have been deferred due to “real security reasons” or the Centre is buying time to analyse the feedback the CEO received to frame its response.