SRINAGAR : Against the backdrop of the killing of four political workers, polling will be held in Anantnag Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir tomorrow to decide the fate of 12 candidates including NC’s Mehboob Beg and opposition PDP president Mehbooba Mufti.
Over 12 lakh voters are expected to exercise their franchise tomorrow in this south Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency.
Although 12 candidates are in the fray for this seat spread over 16 assembly segments in four districts, the contest is expected to be a direct fight between Beg and Mufti.
Of the 16 assembly segments in Anantnag seat, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) MLAs represent 12, the Congress two and the National Conference (NC) and the CPI-M one each.
Voting will be held in the shadow of fear as a Congress sarpanch, his son and a village official were shot dead in Tral area of Pulwama district on Monday night while a PDP sarpanch was shot dead by militants last Thursday in nearby Awanitpora area of the district.
Asked about reports of some pachayat members tendering their resignation in the wake of the killings, Rural Development Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar said, “If they (Panchayat members) feel it right to tell the media that they have resigned, so let it be.
“It is not the time to talk about if anyone has put in papers officially,” Sagar said.
Panchayat members have become a soft target for militants as seven of them were killed in 2012 and 2013.
All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference, a representative body of over 33,000 panchayat members in the state, is angry with the state government over the spate of killings.
The Panchayat Conference in a statement accused the coalition government of turning a blind eye towards the security of panchayat members.
Security agencies have classified 83 per cent of the 1615 polling stations in the constituency as sensitive or hypersensitive. (PTI)
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