Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Nov 28: Like every election held in J&K since the Assembly poll of 1996, the District Development Council (DDC) elections which are being conducted for the first time in J&K’s history have become a futile exercise for displaced Kashmiri Pandits as neither the election authorities are taking pains in making the voting process for migrants vibrant nor the displaced voters from Valley showed any interest in democratic process.
This can be reflected from the fact that in today’s polling for 25 seats of DDC elections out of 4800 registered migrant voters only 32 voters came for voting at specially created 25 polling stations in Government Degree College for Women at Gandhi Nagar while only four votes were polled at specially created polling booth in Udhampur district making the election process for displaced people totally farce as this was the lowest ever turnout of 0.75 percentage of migrant voters among the all elections held so far since their displacement from Valley in 1989-90.
Sources said at the specially created 25 polling booths which went to elections in Kashmir valley today, there were no migrant votes in 10 constituencies while the other 15 booths had a total number of 4800 votes. However, the authorities had deployed staff for all 25 booths and about 100 employees were put on polling duty besides, 150 cops were engaged to man them. But this total exercise proved futile as only 32 persons turned out for voting, sources added.
As per official data, out of 15 constituencies in Pahalgam constituency of district Anantnag in South Kashmir, 15 votes were polled while 11 votes were cast in Rafiabad constituency of Baramulla district in North Kashmir. Besides, three votes each were polled in Damhal Hanjipora constituency of Kulgam district in South Kashmir and Khansahib constituency in Budgam district of Central Kashmir. While no voter turned up for the rest of 11 constituencies.
Confirming this, Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) Migrants Anushman Singh said only 32 votes were polled out of 4800 migrant votes on 15 constituencies of Kashmir valley today by migrants at Jammu while four votes were polled in Udhampur.
According to sources, the main reason for extremely low percentage of voting by migrants in first phase of DDC elections today was due to the confusion created by the Election authorities themselves. Earlier, the State Election Commission (SEC) notified that migrants will cast their vote through postal ballot and no special polling booths will be created for them to exercise their franchise. Some candidates and political parties started the exercise in this regard by collecting the voter forms to get them filled by displaced voters, sources added.
They added the displaced people from Valley and the political parties contesting the elections were under the impression of postal ballot and some of the parties started exercise in this regard. But various migrant organizations including BJP leaders opposed the postal ballot system. Bowing under pressure two days before the elections, the SEC announced the setting up of constituency wise polling booth at GDC Women, Gandhi Nagar which could be one of the reasons for a less turnout, sources added.
Besides like the previous elections no political party and candidate approached the migrants and held meetings with them seeking their vote as has been done in previous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Candidates belonging to all political parties were approaching migrants for vote in their favour by holding public meetings in camps as well as non camp localities previously. But this was totally missing today, sources said.
Except some BJP leaders and one or two party candidates who visited Jammu to approach migrants for vote no other candidate or any leader of other political parties bothered to approach migrants for the votes this time. Even the migrants don’t know the names of the candidates contesting the elections from their area. Hence they too did not show any inclination in these elections, sources said.
Another reason assigned by some migrants for not showing any interest in the elections was that they have been out of Valley for last 32 years now and the development process being undertaken by them in the localities of Kashmir has no link with them hence it was useless for them to vote in these elections.
However, some migrants and political activists said that the names of many migrants who still intended to cast their vote and were always taking part in the democratic exercise were missing in voter lists and they had to return without exercising their right to franchise.
Ashok Dhar, a resident of Seer Pahalgam who is president of TRT Buta Nagar camp said that he has been regularly exercising his right to vote for last 40 years. But this time he along with 32 migrant voters of his village had to return without casting vote as their names were missing in voter lists. He said there were 250 Kashmiri Pandit voters in his village and the names of majority of them were missing.
Dhar said that he along with 32 voters booked matador on their own expenses and visited Gandhi Nagar Women College to cast the vote but they had to return in distress after seeing their names were missing in the voter lists. He criticized the approach of Election authorities saying that a total mockery on the name of elections has been made with displaced Pandits.
BJP leader and Councilor Mattan, Rakesh Kaul also alleged that the names of bonafide voters were missing in the voter lists and SEC had created a confusion among the displaced people as earlier it said that the displaced people will exercise their right to franchise through postal ballot while on the eleventh hour the decision was changed. Moreover, the polling booths were kept far away from the localities where migrants are putting up at present which too has been a cause that people showed no interest in election process, he added.
BJP displaced district president, Chand Ji Bhat said that the decision to create special polling booths for migrants was taken very late by SEC due to which the voting percentage was low. He expressed the hope that in other phases of elections this thing will not be repeated and migrants will be informed well in advance about the polling booths and good publicity will be done for this. The other reason for low turnout was that the people had already opted for postal ballot for first phase of election, he added.
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