Pandits protest on finding names missing
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 18: Total 2837 migrants out of 4885 voters who had opted to exercise their franchise at 26 Special polling booths established for them in different parts of the country cast their vote in the second phase of polling for Srinagar , Budgam, Lok Sabha seat which went to polls in second phase today.
Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) Migrants, Jammu Pankaj Anand said this is 58 percent turnout among the migrants.
It may be recalled that there are 39,343 migrant voters in Srinagar constituency and among them 4885 had applied for casting their vote.
Anand said highest number of votes were polled at Polling Station Jagti A where out of 918 registered voters 603 cast their votes and this was followed by Migrant Polling Station in Government School Chak Chingarwan where out of 980 registered migrants 558 cast their votes.
He however said that one Special Polling booth was created for two migrants at Miran Sahib, R S Pura but no one turned and up to cast vote there.
Forty migrants cast their votes at Special Polling booth at Udhampur out of 75 migrant voters who had filled up their M Forms. This was stated by ARO Udhampur, Anirudh Kumar who is also Collector Land Acquisition Railways.
However only nine votes were polled at two special polling booths in Delhi out of 20 voters who had filled up M-Forms for casting their vote. Twenty M forms were received by ARO Delhi Digvijay Gupta from Kashmiri migrants who had applied to cast their vote at two special polling booths at Delhi. Out of them 15 had opted for Polling Booth at JK House 5 Prathvi Raj while two had applied for Arwachin International School, Dilshad Garden, Delhi. While out of 15 migrant voters only four voters turned up at Polling booth of Prithvi Raj, all the five including three male and two female voters cast their vote at second polling booth.
However migrants alleged that the cumbersome process of filling up of M Forms and Form 12 C has been one of the main hurdle in their way to cast the votes enmass. Besides, some migrants alleged that their names were missing in voter lists despite filling of M Forms. The main complaint was made against Janipur Zone where the migrants alleged that their M Forms were not processed.
Rahul Koul a migrant said that he and his other family members had filled up their M Forms well in time but their names were missing in voter list. He said his request of allowing him to cast the `challenge vote’ under Article 49 was also turned down by the Presiding Officer. This way the authorities were making mockery with the migrant voters, he added.
There were reports that several Kashmiri Pandits could not exercise their franchise as their names were found missing from the electoral rolls.
Miffed at it, they raised slogans against the administration and the Election Commission at several polling stations.
“We came to the polling station to cast our vote but found our names missing from the electoral roll. It is a denial of our right to vote,” said Radha Krishen Bhat, a migrant Kashmiri Pandit from the Chadoora segment of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency.
Pankaj Anand, Assistant Returning Officer (ARO), Migrants, admitted there were problems while preparing the electoral roll.
“There are only a few such cases due to wrong filling of Form M. Some of these forms did not have names of polling stations. Some names did not match with the records,” he said.
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