Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 14: All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference (ASKPC) president, Advocate Ravinder Raina in a meeting here, today said debarring any citizen of India to exercise his franchise in election is a great violation of fundamental rights of the Constitution.
He expressed the grave concern over the way the State Government is behaving with the internally displaced community. He said while on one hand, the Governor is very eager for holding Municipality elections in the State and on the other hand officers at the helm of affairs i.e Chief Electoral Officer of the State is creating hurdles in this process by deleting the names of internally displaced Kashmir Pandits from the Municipality electoral rolls of Jammu district.
This way he is debarring them from utilizing their fundamental rights, he said, adding it is strange that internally displaced Pandits who have been residing for the last three decades and need every civic amenities at the place where they are residing are being directed to exercise their voting franchise for the candidates who are more than 300 kms away from them and will never be able to cater the civic demands of these people.
Raina said the community residing here for last three decades has every right to exercise the fundamental rights and take part in the Municipal elections. Hence displaced community be allowed to vote in their respective wards for their candidates to get every basic needs of livelihood.
Dr.T.K.Bhat general secretary, ASKPC in his address said “though we are in the 29the year of exile, but no road map seems visible for our return and rehabilitation, no doubt we are nationalists and peace loving community, the approach and attitude of both the Central and State Governments towards this hapless community dismayed us’’.
The callousness of the Government is evident from the latest example of denying the community the right to exercise its franchise in coming municipal elections, he added.
Other who spoke on this occasion and showed their concern were R.K.Wangnoo Dr.Satish Bhan ,Veena Gurtoo , Ravi Raina, S.K.Raina and B.L.Handoo.
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