 Early Times Report
Jammu, May 14: The lowest turnout among Kashmiri migrant voters in the Srinagar Parliamentary constituency has not gone well in the BJP as the party for the last ten years has been working to mobilize the displaced community.
Notwithstanding official data shared by the party leaders who were assigned the responsibility to ensure maximum participation of the displaced community, insiders in the party calculated that only 14 percent of Kashmiri migrant voters turned up to cast their votes in the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency for which polling was held on Monday.
BJP leaders, who were given the responsibility of mobilizing migrants, are claiming that 39 percent of eligible Kashmiri migrant voters cast their votes but the reality is different.
As per reports, around 1.25 lakh Kashmiri migrant voters got themselves registered as voters in Kashmir.
“Out of these 1.25 lakh eligible voters, there are around 53,000 registered Kashmiri migrant voters in Srinagar Parliamentary constituency alone”, a source in BJP said and added that due to the failure of the party leaders, only 16,000 had recently shown their interest in casting votes by filling M Form and completing other formalities.
On Monday out of a total of 53,000 eligible Kashmiri migrant voters in the Srinagar Parliamentary constituency, only 6800 exercised their right to franchise which is above 12 percent of the total eligible voters on the seat.
Highly placed sources said that a special cell was set up by the BJP and this cell was working only on the migrant voters. “A dedicated office and staff were at the disposal of the cell to ensure maximum participation of Kashmiri migrant voters”, a source in the BJP said and added that low turnout was an indication that members of the cell failed to reach out to the Kashmiri migrants.
“Majority of the Kashmiri migrant voters living in Jammu, Udhampur, and Delhi were enthusiastic to cast their votes in the Lok Sabha elections but members of the BJP’s cell failed to reach out to them in time”, a source said, adding, “It appears that members of the cell remained confined only to their dedicated office and have befooled the party leaders”. |
