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| 24 pc turnout amid boycott in Srinagar; modest polling in Ganderbal, Budgam | | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, May 7: Even as the separatist Hurriyat Conference-sponsored boycott to the Lok Sabha elections had a substantial impact in all the eight segments in Srinagar, moderate to brisk polling was recorded in seven rural segments in Ganderbal and Budgam districts. Polling in the Central Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency of Srinagar-Budgam, as also in the Assembly constituency of Sonwar, came to an end this evening with 24 percent voter turnout.
11.06 Lakh electors were entitles to vote in the penultimate phase of Lok Sabha elections in Jammu & Kashmir. While there are 15 candidates in the fray, ruling National Conference’s Dr Farooq Abdullah and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party’s Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari are widely believed to be the key contestants in Central Kashmir. In the by-election for Sonwar Assembly segment, that had been necessitated due to the elected MLA Dr Farooq Abdullah’s resignation in February, NC’s Mohammad Yasin Shah and PDP’s Mohammad Ashraf Mir, are unanimously rated as the key contestants.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), J&K, Mr B R Sharma said at a news conference here this evening that around 24% electors had exercised their franchise in today’s polling. He said that the Presiding Officers’ diaries were being received and tabulated and the final statistics would be available in the next 24 hours. Giving “tentative figures”, Mr Sharma said that the rural districts of Ganderbal and Budgam had recorded turnout of 38% and 37% respectively. According to him, turnout was just 11.46% in the capital Srinagar district. Even as today’s turnout was substantially lower than that of the Assembly elections of December 2008, it was an improvement of nearly 6% over that of the Lok Sabha elections of 2004 when only 18.57% electors had exercised their franchise in Central Kashmir.
CEO said that in today’s polling turnout was 44% in Kangan, 34% in Ganderbal (Ganderbal district), 56% in Chrar-e-Sharief, 33% in Chadoura, 33% in Khansahab, 29% in Budgam, 35% in Beerwah (Budgam district), 14.05% in Hazratbal, 12.84% in Zadibal, 25.24% in Sonwar, 12.87% in Batmaloo, 7.50% in Iddgah, 7.34% in Khanyar, 4.69% in Amirakadal and a nominal 1.75% in Habbakadal (Srinagar district). By this calculations, nearly 2.66 Lakh people cast their vote today.
Sharma said that 17 polling stations had been set up for migrant voters in New Delhi, Jammu and Udhampur districts. According to him, about 8% electors exercised their franchise at 12 of such polling stations in Jammu. Out of 12,040 registered voters, just 962 turned up to cast their vote. Besides, out of 144 migrant electors just 81 persons cast their vote at one-odd polling station in Udhampur. He revealed that not a single migrant voter had turned up at four of such stations in Delhi.
Sharma said that in order to ensure free and fair polling, as many as 616 Micro Observers, 100 Zonal and Sectoral Officers and 26 video cameras had been deployed to monitor polling across 1483 polling stations set up across 15 segments in the Central Kashmir constituency. He said that various political parties registered complaints about bogus and mobile voting which were enquired into and found baseless. He said 21 complaints of EVM malfunctioning were also received and orders for their immediate replacement were issued. “As has been the case in the first three phases, we have a communication plan in place which allows us to take immediate action on complaints received. We received 18 complaints from various polling stations which were verified and found baseless”, CEO said.
CEO disclosed that said two specific complaints were received about government officials being involved in violating norms of the Election Commission. “One complaint was received from 40-polling station, Natipora in Amirakadal segment where one Gulzar Ahmad Ganai, who works as a spinner in Sericulture Department, was arrested for working as a polling agent”, he said and added that Additional District Development Commissioner, Srinagar, M Y Zargar, had been asked to conduct an enquiry. He said the other complaint was received from Kandhama, Beerwah, where an employee of Flood Control Department, Mohamamd Ashraf Mattoo, who was reportedly functioning as polling agent of a particular party. He said that DC Budgam had been asked to conduct a probe and submit his report.
Mr Sharma did not reveal political affiliation of the delinquent officials but informed sources later told Early Times that both had been hired by leaders of the ruling NC. These sources said that Police Station Ram Munshibagh took into custody a group of nine bogus voters of PDP at Dalgate and seized their Tata Sumo, bearing registration No: JK03-4012. Police officials confirmed this incident but refused to reveal party affiliation of the detainees. Sources said that in another incident, Police Station Nageen took into custody another group of PDP’s bogus voters at Ashai Bagh Bridge. All the eight, including a woman, have been seized alongwith three of their vehicles. This incident was also confirmed by IGP Kashmir at CEO’s press conference without disclosing political affiliation of the detainees.
Sources said that Station Nageen detained the “bogus voters” and registered against them case FIR No: 42/09 dated 7-5-2009. They said that three of their vehicles, reportedly engaged for BhartiAirtel, and bearing registration numbers JK01-K 5865, JK01-K 5864 and JK01-K 6933 had been seized. Ironically, none other than the PDP candidate had called a press conference on Wednesday and alleged that the ruling NC had hired a large number of bogus voters and lodged them at two particular hotels in Srinagar for the purpose of casting fake votes.
However, in his reaction to KNS, PDP candidate, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, denied that any of his supporters of bogus voters had been arrested by Police. On the other hand, he alleged, NC’s senior leader and Minister for Rural Development, Ali Mohammad Sagar, and his son, Salman Sagar, who happens to be Mayor of Srinagar, made repeated attempts to capture certain booths in Khanyar and other segments in Srinagar. He alleged that Police watched it all as mute spectator and did not act.
In their separate statements and media interviews, heads of both factions of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, as also JKLF Chairman, Yasin Malik, claimed that the people of Kashmir valley had rejected the Indian Parliamentary election in J&K by observing “total shutdown” and making “boycott” to today’s polling “like that of April 30 in South Kashmir”. They expressed their gratitude to the people that a decided majority of them had stayed away from the “election drama being held under shadows of 7 Lakh soldiers”. Almost all separatist political and militant organizations had called for total boycott to the elections.
Indications were galore that much like in South Kashmir on April 30th, relatively poor turnout in Srinagar and Budgam districts was yet again advantage NC. While the pro-Azadi electorate, including a sizeable chunk of Jamaat-e-Islami people in Budgam district, stayed away from the polling, even a section of its PDP overlap stayed indoors. Even in the NC votebank, enthusiasm witnessed in December 2008 was largely missing today. However, most of those turning up at the polling stations were apparently NC followers.
On the other hand, there appeared to be a vertical split in the 1,50,000-strong Shia votebank in Srinagar and Budgam districts. With about 60% turnout, about 60% of them seemed to casting their votes for Shia cleric and PDP candidate Maulvi Iftikhar about 40% turned up to cast their votes for the NC candidate Dr Farooq Abdullah. Among Shia political and religious leaders, Maulvi Iftikhar and Aga Syed Mehmood are with PDP and Aga Syed Ruhullah (MLA Budgam and son-in-law of senior Hurriyat leader Aga Syed Hassan) is affiliated to NC. Supporters of another separatist leader, Maulvi Abbas Ansari, who do not account for more than 5% of the Shia electorate, were absent even as their leader had not called for boycott to the polling.
Reports said that minor clashes took place between the NC and PDP supporters at four places and between PDF and PDP workers at one place in Budgam district.
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