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Incident free poll a feather in Commission's cap 12/21/2014 10:53:11 PM If the incident free Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir is any indication militants besides the separatists seem to have lost teeth. Yes, militants did kill a number of Panchayat heads in various villages, including Sopore and Shopian ,these killings had no major impact on the polling process. In fact the Election Commission deserves credit for having made adequate security arrangements which did not allow militants to disrupt the poll process in the sensitive state. When the election schedule was announced there were many,including politicians and poll experts,who had been apprehensive about the polling percentage and about the possibilities of incident free election. Their apprehension was based on two factors. One the timing of the election. Since right from middle of December the valley and the hilly areas of the region of Jammu besides the entire Ladakh province remain in the grip of cold wave.While in Ladakh the day temperature drops to subzero level the valley his swept by cold wave,snow and rain.Hence it was feared that people may not like to brave cold wave and cast their votes. Secondly,there were reports that militants may resort to acts of violence and carry out killing of innocent civilians to create scare among people so that voters responded fully to the call for poll boycott given by the separatists. However,the incident free polling, and equally the peaceful pre-poll campaign and high poll percentage proved wrong those who had predicted poor polling percentage. One was surprised when during the phase 1 election polling percentage touched over 70 per cent which was reported in other phases.It was only in eight Assembly segments of Srinagar district where less than 35 per cent polling was recorded. There were other Assembly segments, including Sopore, Bar amulla, Shopian, Pulwama which recorded lower polling percentage because majority of voters had sympathies with separatists who had given a call for poll boycott, weeks ahead of the announcement of the poll schedule.When in the first phase polling percentage had touched over 70 per cent some separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani,tried to convince people that since they had not taken any step for enforcing their call of poll boycott voting percentage had been quite high. Geelani went on to explain that he had instructed voters to vote in strength as high polling percentage could prevent the BJP from winning a single seat in the Kashmir valley. And some mainstream politicians, including those in the National Conference, too agreed with Geelani's argument. These mainstream politicians had stated that high polling percentage had rendered votes from Kashmiri Pandit migrants ineffective in deciding the fate of some candidates. It was believed, though wrongly,that since the majority of the Pandit voters were going to cast their votes in favour of the BJP their vote had lost its importance. Whatever may have been the reason for high polling percentage one thing can be said with certainty that people wanted a change and hence they voted in strength for change of guard.Essentially the security forces need to get the credit for having created an atmosphere which was conducive or which motivated people to walk to the polling booths for casting their votes.The Union Home Ministry had deployed over 600 companies of paramilitary forces and these forces with the support of the state police and those companies of CRPF which had been already stationed within the state initiated measures,including sanitization of areas in and around polling stations against any explosives that could have been planted by militants,did encourage voters for exercising their right of franchise.In addition to this the Defence Ministry had been constantly directing troops to remain on the alert on the LOC and on the IB. Interestingly, with security and counter-infiltration grid having been upgraded on the entire Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir here were no major ingress bids and no incidents of ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops.This too added to the confidence of voters who voluntarily cast their votes.What should be encouraging for people and political parties is the way the poll process was conducted without any incidents of rigging or malpractices.   Share This News with Your Friends on Social Network     Comment on this Story

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