Enthusiasm reigning over Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency ahead of voting

Budgam: There is a wave of happiness among the voters in this predominantly Shia town, about 15-km west of Kashmiri capital Srinagar, but more avid appears to be Tanvir Hussein, a senior citizen who lives in a tiny but nice house of exposed bricks and timber built on a sloped land here.

“I didn’t vote in any of the elections in the past nearly three decades. But this time I’m going to vote with all pleasure and excitement,” he told this newspaper. Mr. Hussein is a sworn supporter of Jammu and Kashmir Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, a religio-political organisation of Shia Muslims based here in Budgam. As a constituent of the separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference, the Anjuman endorsed its boycott call in every election that was held in the past be it for Lok Sabha or the Assembly of the erstwhile state, leaving Mr. Hussein with no choice but to follow the diktat.

Kashmiri watchers say that it was because of a combination of fear of and sympathy for the separatists that the post-1989 the Kashmir Valley witnessed least participative polls and the lowest voter turnouts in its history. But this time there is no poll boycott call from any separatist political or militant group and the people here and elsewhere in the Valley are going to vote without facing any such dilemma.

However, Fatima bint Hassan, another resident, says she did not care about the separatists’ boycott call even when defying their diktats was fraught with hazards. “Though the situation here in Budgam was different as compared to the rest of the Valley, the threat of being harassed was ever-present,’ she said.

In the 2002 Assembly elections Ms. Fatima chose to vote for Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, a member of the Budgam’s influential Aga family, considering him a “victim of terrorism.” Mr. Mehdi’s father Aga Syed Mehdi was killed in an IED blast on November 3, 2000 at neighbouring Kanihama, the incident blamed on the separatist militants by the police. Mr. Mehdi won that election and was elected to the J&K Assembly also in the 2008 and 2014 elections as the National Conference (NC) nominee. Ironically, his uncle and father-in-law Aga Syed Hassan was heading the Anjuman when he chose to join the election fray.

He is now seeking election to Lok Sabha from the Srinagar constituency spread over 19 Assembly segments in the districts of Srinagar, Budgam, Ganderbal, Pulwama and Shopian. Mr. Mehdi is pitted against People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s key face Waheed Ur Rehman Para, J&K Apni Party’s Mohammad Ashraf Mir and more than twenty nominees of other political groups and independents. While Mr. Para is positioned strongly in a few Assembly segments of Pulwama, his home district, and Mr. Mir who will be bidding for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is expected to share major chunk of votes in parts of a couple of segments, Mr. Mehdi is leaps and bounds ahead of his rivals.

Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, chief Mr. Hassan had been approached by the J&K Apni party with a request to extend the Anjuman’s support to its candidate, but he decided to stay aloof following receiving the feedback from its rank and file and supporters that they cannot even think of voting for anyone in the fray other than Mr. Mehdi. The NC expects that apart from getting almost entire 60,000-odd Shia votes of the constituency, Mr. Mehdi will emerge as the prime mover with the majority Sunni electorate in all the four districts of the constituency.

Srinagar, which has over 17.4 lakh registered voters, will go to the polls in the fourth phase of six-week-long election season on May 13. End it