Low turn-out but free & fair polling in Pahalgam, Batmaloo From Ahmed Ali Fayyaz & Aijaz Hussain PAHALGAM/SRINAGAR, Sept 13: With near-total shutdown in Pahalgam and a partial one in Batmaloo, polling for by-election in the two Assembly segments in Kashmir valley was conducted in a tension-free atmosphere today. Militants managed to mark their attendance with an IED blast that left as many as 15 people wounded at Frislan, in Pahalgam. Chief Electoral Officer claimed that the turnout was 18.66% in Pahalgam and 12.20% in Batmaloo. PDP’s Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who has been the head of the coalition government since November 2002, is fighting National Conference’s Rafi Ahmed Mir and two others in Pahalgam. There are 13 candidates in Batmaloo but PDP’s Tariq Hameed Qarra and NC’s Irfan Ahmed Shah are the key contestants. The seats had fallen vacant due to the PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s election to Lok Sabha and the NC stalwart Ghulam Mohi-ud-din Shah’s death earlier this year. Chief Electoral Officer, K B Agarwal, told mediapersons this evening that the polling was incident-free in all the four segments of Batmaloo, Pahalgam, Akhnoor and Basohli. He said that the turnout was 18.66% in Pahalgam, 12.20% in Batmaloo, 61% in Akhnoor and 58% in Basohli. He said that the blast occurred well after the polling had closed at Laripora. He claimed that the entire polling material, including the EVMs, were safe. According to him, none of the polling staff had been killed or injured in any incident anywhere in the State. However, official sources said late tonight that Pahalgam recorded 21.7% turnout (total votes polled 13910) while Batmaloo recorded 11.7% turnout (total votes polled 12445). Agarwal said that some candidates and their agents had lodged a few complaints of irregularities but none of these had been found genuine. J&K Police spokesman, however, said that militants caused the mine blast at Frislan at 1630 hours. He said that their target was a bus carrying security forces and the polling staff. The spokesman said that three soldiers, four members of the polling staff, driver of the bus and a Police constable sustained injuries. He said that in the afternoon today, militants fired a rifle grenade towards a polling booth at Katsoo in Pahalgam. It exploded but failed to cause any damage. Last night, militants had fired a rifle grenade towards a polling booth at Seer Hamadan in Pahalgam. It had also exploded close to the target but failed to cause damage. Low to moderate turnout was witnessed in Pahalgam and Batmaloo but there were few allegations of the coercion of voters by security forces. It was only in Akad-Batkoot belt of Pahalgam where some people alleged that Police and Army had "forced" the voters to go to the polling station. Authorities had detained senior separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Sheikh Abdul Aziz and Shabir Ahmed Shah at their respective residences in Srinagar to prevent them from creating a law and order situation. JKLF chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik, had already been lifted from Maulana Azad Road and lodged in a Police lock-up. In contrast to the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections held in 1996-2004 period, there was not a single voice of Azadi or boycott to elections anywhere in Pahalgam and Batmaloo today. However, a near-total shutdown was in force in Pahalgam segment. In Pahalgam, Laripora village was the one-odd village where several people alleged that armed forces had asked the voters to cast their votes at the polling station. Visibly under the militants’ threat, few voters had turned up voluntarily. One Abdur Rasheed Bhat said: "Mujahideen had pasted posters a few days back, asking people not to vote. On the other hand, Army asked the people to go for the polling. But I want to make it clear that I would have turned up even without the Army’s call". Inside the polling station, students of Class 6th and 7th were casting votes. The booth at Laripora had been captured by some activists of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who were seen holding the fingers of the voters and forcing them to press the PDP candidate’s symbol. The Presiding and the Polling Officers were openly in favour of the PDP. At Batkoot, in Pahalgam, Presiding Officer Ghulam Mohammad said that not a single voter had turned up till 1100 hours. Just 10 votes had been polled out of 845 at Batkoot 15-A and 49 out of 1315 at Batkoot 15 till 1400 hours. "But we are not all away due to the militants’ fear alone. This is the village of highest literacy rate in Pahalgam. We have dozens of unemployed youth here. What’s Mufti doing for us?", said a youngster at Batkoot. He said that only the horse operators would voluntarily cast their votes for they had been lately given LPG connections and Rs 10,000 a family. Shabir Ahmed, another youngster at Batkoot, said that militants had appeared a few days back and reminded the residents that as many as 40 "martyrs" lay buried around Batkoot. The militants, according to Shabir, wanted everybody to stay indoors on the day of the polling. At Pahalgam, SHO Bashir Ahmed was seen openly ferrying voters to the polling station in a Tata Sumo vehicle. "We have to be helpful to the woman and the elderly voters", said the Police official without any hesitation. "What’s wrong in it?", he asked Presspersons. But hundreds of residents like Ramzan Moray had dared militants’ threats and turned up at the polling booths to exercise their right of franchise. "This is my right. Why shouldn’t I exercise it?", asked Moray when asked why he and a number of his fellow villagers had turned up to cast their votes at Polling Station Pahalgam-5. Inspite of the militants’ rifle grenade attack on the polling station at Seer Hamadan, there was tremendous enthusiasm among the voters. As many as 347 voters out of 1236 had cast their votes at one polling booth while as 145 votes had been cast out of 600 on another polling booth at Seer Hamdan upto 1400 hours. Presiding Officer Hilal Ahmed said that a woman in disguise turned up as many as 20 times but every time she was turned out as she had already cast her own vote. Still, only 1 to 8% was the turnout at a large number of polling booths where most of the voters boycotted the polling and others remained indoors for fear of the militants. Even as the turnout dipped from 33% to 18.66% in Pahalgam as compared to the Assembly elections of 2002, it went up from 4% to 12.20% in Batmaloo. In Batmaloo too, most of the people chose to remain away but their boycott to the election seemed to be voluntary. No fear of militants was in evidence anywhere in this urban segment. Contrary to very low turnout in the urban localities, long queues of male and female voters were seen in the semi-urban and the rural areas in Batmaloo. As many as 500 votes had been polled at the two polling booths at Gund-e-Hassibhat upto 10.00 a.m. Shia followers of the NC leader Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari were casting their votes in favour of the NC candidate. On the other hand, Shia supports of the Hurriyat leader Maulvi Abbas Ansari were openly casting their votes in favour of the ruling PDP candidate. They cited "good developmental works", particularly blacktopping of a link road to the village, as the main reason for supporting Tariq Hameed Qarra. An elderly woman, Zamrooda W/o Ibli Wani, fought with the Presiding Officer Brahm Pal for 30 minutes and did not budge an inch until she was allowed to cast a vote. A rival agent had objected that her husband’s name was Hussain Wani in the electoral roll. The scene was no different at the Sunni population villages of Zainakoot and Mujgund where all the 13 candidates had their polling agents. In the first four hours of the polling, 300 votes had been polled out of 1706 at two polling booths of Zainakoot. A number of residents said that due to the militants’ fear and the Hurriyat’s call, they had not voted in the elections held in 1996-2004 period. "But this time we saw the same Jamaat-e-Islami people, who used to threaten us in the past, working for the PDP. We turned up and most of us will again vote for the National Conference", said a resident, Ali Mohammad Mir. Inspite of the moderate turnout of voters, there was total chaos and confusion at the six polling booths at Degree College Bemina. Chits given to the voters didn’t tally either with the electoral rolls of the candidates’ agents. The agents’ electoral rolls did not tally with those given to the polling officers. Over 60% of the voters returned to home without casting their votes. A number of them complained that it was a "deliberate mischief by the Government" as the voters were mostly the NC’s traditional supports from Boat Colony. One Mohammad Ashraf Bhat S/o Abdul Gani Bhat R/o House No: 40/A, Bemina Housing Colony, displayed Elector’s Identity Card No: JK-25 012779 duly issued to him by the election authorities on 28-8-2002. He checked electoral rolls at all the six booths but found his name nowhere. Presiding Officer M H Bhat (Bemina 19-A) told the EXCELSIOR that he had taken the cognizance of the voter’s complaint and would take a decision after studying the rules. Similarly, EXCELSIOR team found one Ateeqa of Dyarwani wandering from one polling station to another in Batmaloo, alongwith her 18-year-old daughter Shameema, to exercise her right of franchise. "We are five voters in the family. Only this girl was allowed to cast a vote", Ateeqa said while pointing towards her daughter. She said that she had made three trips to all the polling stations in Batmaloo but all the polling officers told her that neither her name nor those of her other family members, excluding Shameema, were in their electoral rolls. Ateeqa said that she and other of her family members were keen to cast their votes in favour of the PDP candidate who, she said, was a resident of Batmaloo and had done "very good work" in the last two years. Blacktopping of dilapidated roads seemed to be paying off for the PDP as the mixers and levellers were seen still on road. PDP a gainer As for the trends witnessed today, PDP seemed to be in a comfortable position. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s party, which had lost Batmaloo with just 800 votes in year 2002, is likely to make the first inroads in the NC stronghold of Srinagar city. Its candidate, Tariq Qara, seems to have managed a number of developmental works in Batmaloo constituency. The party got a shot in the arm when senior NC activist Sheikh Abdur Rehman deserted Omar Abdullah’s party last month and he joined the PDP. NC had already lost Pahalgam in 1996 and 2002. In the Lok Sabha elections of April 2004, PDP got an impressive lead of about 9,000 votes over the NC in Pahalgam Assembly segment. In additional to a number of developmental works and beautification of Pahalgam, the PDP-led coalition Government seemed to have arranged friendly polling staff at a large number of the polling stations. Besides, the administrative machinery and Police also seemed to be openly supportive of the ruling party. By all indications, including a good campaigning, PDP is likely to retain Pahalgam. |
