SRINAGAR, 25 September — The capital of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar, recorded an abysmally poor voter turnout of less than one percent. The city wore a deserted look through the day and at most of the booths nobody voted. In contrast to deserted polling stations in the city queues of voters were seen in Budgam district and Hindu-dominated Jammu.
Chief election officer Pramod Jain said that the overall voter turnout was 42 percent. He said “The voter turnout was lower than our expectation, the city recorded only 11 percent voter turnout.” Jain said the highest turnout was in Charar-e-Sharif with 59 percent while Hawakadal saw the lowest with less than one percent.
Arab News toured six out of ten constituencies in Srinagar and in almost all, there were no voters and in many cases the polling personnel had not even opened the polls. In the adjoining town of Budgam, the situation was slightly better than in Srinagar. Budgam saw a voter turnout of 51 percent and Jammu recorded 59 percent.
One thing was very clear. There was no enthusiasm among people and at places where Arab News visited, they came forward and chanted anti-India slogans and slogans for freedom and no elections.
The entire city of Srinagar remained true to separatist boycott calls against the poll and all shops and establishments were closed. There was no vehicular traffic in the streets.
The chairman of All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, Abdul Ghani Bhat, told Arab News that with today’s fiasco, the government claim about first round of polling has also been exposed.
“The poll officials claim of overall satisfactory turnout today is nothing but a reassertion of the statement made by L.K. Advani on Monday when he said that ‘the second round of voting would see 40 percent voter turnout.’ When the country’s home minister is saying that, how can poll officials here in Kashmir negate it? The boycott was complete and not even one percent polling was recorded in Srinagar. But in Jammu and Budgam slightly high turnout was seen due to some local reasons, that’s all.”
About 15 Delhi-based diplomats also witnessed the polling yesterday.
