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| PDP’s loss: Jamaat on boycott, Pulwama district lukewarm | | NC’s loss: Cong, CPI (M) turn out with just modest support | |
South Kashmir polling turnout falls to 26%
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
ANANTNAG, Apr 30: With both, ruling National Conference (NC) as well as the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), failing to get sizable vote from their declared and undeclared electoral allies, the South Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency of Anantnag-Pulwama recorded a modest turnout of 26 percent when the first phase of polling was conducted today in Kashmir valley in the backdrop of Hurriyat-sponsored shutdown.
Chief Electoral Officer, B R Sharma, told Early Times late tonight that aggregate turnout of 26.25% had been recorded in the sixteen segments spread in Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam districts of South Kashmir. Even as the voter turnout has considerably fallen to just 26.25% from an impressive 57.60% recorded in the Assembly elections of December 2008, Mr Sharma asserted that it was an improvement of nearly 12% over that of the Lok Sabha elections of May 2004. After the lowest ever turnout of 6% in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989, Anantnag-Pulwama had recorded voter turnout of 15.04% in the Parliamentary elections of 2004.
While the turnout in South Kashmir was 23.91% in the Assembly elections of October 2002, it had phenomenally risen to 57.60% in the Assembly elections of December 2008. Remarkably shrinking base of militants, regional and communal divide created by politicians between Kashmir valley and Jammu in the wake of Amarnath Shrine land controversy as also the Kashmiri voters’ disillusionment with the separatist camp were believed to be the key factors behind massive participation of the Kashmiris in the Assembly elections.
Mr Sharma said that in today’s polling, Anantnag segment recorded a modest turnout of 21.29%, Pahalgam 55%, Bijbehara 34.08%, Shangus 39.14%, Dooru 27.84%, Kokernag 33.73%; Kulgam 19.58%, Homeshalibugh 25.00%, Divsar 40.20%, Noorabad 54.37%; Shopian 17.92%, Wachi 19.65%; Pulwama 14.00%, Rajpora 13.00%, Pampore 4.65% and Tral 2.83%.
At a news conference earlier this evening in Srinagar, Mr Sharma said that today’s polling had been conducted smoothly and no major incident of disruption of election or violence had been reported from anywhere in South Kashmir. He said that only 8 complaints had been received from various political parties which were enquired and found baseless. ‘We have a polling station-level communication plan in place which allows us to track complaints and have them enquired in real time”, he said and added that 11 complaints about EVM malfunctioning had also been received following which ballot units had been immediately replaced.
In order to ensure free, fair and transparent elections, the CEO said that three Election Observers and about 160 Micro Observers had been deployed while as 32 video cameras had been installed at different positions for continuous monitoring of the polling exercise. In reply to a question over PDP’s complaint, he asserted that none of the SPOs had been placed on duty at any polling station in the constituency.
Giving details about migrant voters for whom 13 polling stations had been set up in Jammu and Udhampur districts, Mr Sharma said that 2,128 voters exercised their right of franchise out of 10,203 registered voters. He revealed that not a single migrant voter had turned up at the special polling station set up in New Delhi.
IGP Kashmir, Dr B Srinivas, said at the news conference that just two minor incidents of clashes between the NC and the PDP activists had been reported from South Kashmir in which a total of three persons had sustained injuries. Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, Masood Samoon, and Director of Information, Khalid Bashir, were also present at the CEO’s press conference.
Notwithstanding their high voltage campaigning, quite a number of senior mainstream leaders and legislators themselves did not exercise their right of vote in today’s polling. PDP particularly came at the receiving end of a hard-hitting statement from the NC President Dr Farooq Abdullah who noticed Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s and Mehbooba Mufti’s absence from their polling booth. He remarked that the Mufti’s had asked others to vote but themselves observed boycott to the polling.
Even as PDP MLA Rafi Mir’s Pahalgam recorded the highest turnout of 55% and the NC MLA Sakeena Itoo’s Noorabad segment stood second with 54.37%, eight other segments in Annatnag and Kulgam districts turned up with modest participation of 20 to 40 percent in today’s polling. However, as a matter of very serious concern for PDP, polling was low in Shopian district and extremely low in Pulwama district. PDP had made a clean sweep in all the six segments of Shopian and Pulwama districts in the Assembly elections of 2008.
Official sources said that just around 5,000 voters cast their votes out of 1,45,000 in the PDP stronghold of Tral and Pampore in Pulwama district. They said that boycott to the polling was near-total in Tral and Pampore as less than 50 voters turned up in Tral township which has over 10,000 voters. Unidentified gunmen, believed to be separatist militants, had spread a wave of terror in Tral as they had shot dead a PDP activist, Manzoor Ahmed Kullay, on April 20th and an NC activist, Abdusl Sattar Ganai of Monghama, on April 24th.
Apparently in a neck-and-neck contest, both NC as well as PDP suffered remarkable damage today. It was widely observed that most of the Congress leaders, who had been in the forefront of campaigning last fortnight, were either missing or not so enthusiastic in mobilization of their followers. Even as Pirzada Mohammad Sayeed did significant mobilization of his voters for the coalition candidate Dr Mehboob Beg, MLA Dooru Ghulam Ahmed Mir as also influential Congress leaders in Shangus (Gulzar Ahmed) and Noorabad (Abdul Majeed Paddar) were absent alongwith their supporters. Reliable sources insisted that over 50% of their followers voted for the PDP candidate Pir Mohammad Hussain.
For NC’s disadvantage, most of the CPI (M) leader and MLA Kulgam Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami’s followers were also absent from today’s polling. Sources said that Mr Tarigami had maintained neutrality for fear of winning the wrath of his Central leadership but conveyed through other means to his supporters that voting for NC would be better than voting for PDP. However, at the end of the day, most of them decided not to vote.
On the other hand, PDP suffered a major loss in the boycott of the undeclared ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, which has a substantial base in Tral, Pulwama, Wachi, Shopian, Kulgam and Homeshalibugh segments. Over 40,000 voters belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami are believed to have voted for PDP candidates in the Assembly elections of 2008. However, in the current elections, a large section of the PDP voters as also almost all of the Jamaat observed boycott to the polling on the call issued by hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Reports said that a good number of NC voters too stayed away due a wave of disappointment and disillusionment in the party rank and file in the last four months.
While Kashmir valley elsewhere observed near-total shutdown in response to the Geelani-Mirwaiz call for boycott, Geelani claimed at a news conference in Srinagar this evening that the people of South Kashmir had favourably responded to his call and rejected the “drama of elections”.
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