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| Panchayat poll grapes have gone sour for separatists | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, June 4: It is almost grapes are sour saga for the separatists when they have started claiming that they had not given any call to people in Jammu and Kashmir to boycott the ongoing Panchayat elections. The latest to join the chorus is the Chief of Muzaffarabad based United Jehad Council, Syed Salahuddin. Salahuddin has stated that his amalgam had not given a call for Panchayat poll boycott and that was the reason for heavy polling.
And when one asks separatists, moderates as well as the hardliners, to comment on heavy polling they say that elections have no link with the resolution of the Kashmir issue. To them participation in the voting is for better roads, power and drinking water supply.
A senior APHC leader, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, is of the opinion that neither the Government nor the mainstream political leaders need to bask under the illusion that heavy polling meant status quo. He said that had elections been a substitute for right of self-determination or plebiscite, as provided under the UN resolution on Kashmir, the issue would have been resolved right in 1951 when the first Assembly election was held in Jammu and Kashmir.
The separatists had given calls for boycott of Panchayat elections right from the day the Government announced its decision to hold the poll. The separatists were so much in haste for giving a call for boycott that they did not wait for the Government to announce the poll schedule. Now that between 70 and 80 per cent polling had been recorded during the first 13 phases, out of 16, the separatists have every reason to feel rattled in their cozy rooms.
In fact the heavy percentage of polling has not surprised only the state Government but the separatists too. And the chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, seems to have been moved by Salahuddin's statement to the extent that he (Omar) has not wasted time in greeting the UJC chief's statement.
Hailing the statement of United Jihad Council Chief Syed Salahudin that the amalgam had not given any call for boycott of Panchayat elections, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that the poll turnover would have been much higher had the announcement come earlier. "I welcome the statement of Syed Salahudin that there was no call from UJC for Panchayat election boycott but unfortunately that statement came only when 11 phases were over. Had he issued that statement prior to the beginning of the elections, I hope the participation would have been nearly 100 percent," Omar has stated.
Omar possibly has not understood the implications of his statement. By saying that had Salahuddin's statement come before the polling began 100 per cent people would have cast their votes. This means that Syed Salahuddin has great influence on the people in general and voters in particular in Jammu and Kashmir.
Political analysts say that the statements from Salahuddin or Geelani or Mirwaiz are part of their exercise on staging a retreat after they feel defeated by the people whose aspirations they claim to represent. The call for poll boycott during the 2002 and 2008 Assembly elections too had marginal response from the voters in Jammu and Kashmir.
As far as Omar Abdullah led Government is concerned it need not feel elated over heavy polling percentage because if people have taken part in the Panchayat elections they have done so to set the stage for better roads, power and drinking water supply after they have realised that the ruling coalition has failed to improve the road connectivity in the rural areas where the problem of power and drinking water shortage has assumed new dimensions. |
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