Kashmiris bite the bullet for ballot; turnout in record numbers in first phase of voting

Kangan (J&K): “They failed us, but we can’t afford to fail ourselves,” said Abdus Salam Lone, an octogenarian Kashmiri villager, as he turned up at a hillside polling booth surrounded by woodlands and tall pines near this highway town north of capital Srinagar to cast his vote on Tuesday.

Lone was referring to Kashmiri separatists who had called for a boycott of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on the premise these cannot be a substitute to the promised plebiscite.

But, like him, people in record numbers, virtually showing contempt for the boycott call, voted in all the 15 segments in the first phase of the five-phase elections. The entire state recorded an historic turnout of 71.28 per cent as 15 constituencies went to polls in the first phase of elections. Vinod Zutshi told reporters in Jammu that the voting figures may go up.

[Jharkhand, which also saw voting in the first phase, recorded a turnout of 61.92 per cent with the figures expected to go up, Election Commission officials said in New Delhi.]

No doubt separatists have hardly any say in Ladakh region, while the Muslim electorate of Chenab Valley, had already made it clear they would not give a damn about the separatists’ poll boycott call.