Anantnag/Shopian/Kulgam: An 82-year-old Mohammed Qamaal Bhat emerged from a polling station, his face alight with a smile. Having just voted in the Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir — a region shook by a terror attack last week — Bhat displayed his inked finger with pride.
“The elections have happened after a long time. I am happy at least it has happened, even though it happened very late” he remarked, expressing his stance on pressing issues like unemployment and “tanashahi (authoritarianism)”.
The Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, reconstituted after delimitation, reported a 52.28 percent voter turnout at 8 pm, according to the Election Commission of India. While the percentage will be revised by the EC, this turnout is much higher than the erstwhile Anantnag, which saw a turnout of 8.98 percent in the 2019 elections. Notably, the turnout in the erstwhile Anantnag seat had never gone beyond 30 percent since 1996.
However, the comparison is complex, given the constituency’s reconfiguration, which now includes parts of the Jammu region known for high electoral participation.
The erstwhile Anantnag constituency encompassed the entire districts of Pulwama and Shopian. After delimitation, Pulwama and one of Shopian’s two assembly segments were incorporated into the Srinagar constituency, which too experienced an unprecedented voter turnout.
Consequently, the districts of Rajouri and Poonch from the Jammu region were integrated into the Anantnag constituency. The twin districts from the region have always seen a high turnout, which continued this time as well.
The Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat has become a battleground for key political figures, including former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, National Conference leader Mian Altaf, and JK Apni Party’s Zaffar Manhas, for whom BJP also campaigned in the constituency.
Yet the real success story lies in the fact that South Kashmir districts, including Anantnag, Shopian and Kulgam — often labelled a “militancy hotbed” and affected by boycott calls — also saw a significant rise in voter turnout.
One of the major turnarounds came from Shopian district, where in 2019, total voter turnout was a mere 3 percent. This time in the two assembly seats — Shopian (which went to polls in Phase 4) and Zainapora — the turnout at 8 pm was 44.34 percent in the district. This is the same district that saw an attack on a former sarpanch by terrorists last week.
Anantnag, too, witnessed a significant rise, with 42.79 percent polling in the district. Pahalgam, where the tourist couple from Rajasthan was attacked last week, saw a turnout of 55.63 percent.
Kulgam, the third district in the fray, also showed substantial improvement, with voter turnout across three assembly segments reaching 42.15 percent. At 14.41 percent, it had the highest turnout among the three districts in 2019.
Voters like Aakib Shafiq, an engineer, and his businessman friend Aijaz Malik, voiced their confidence in Indian democracy and their hope for development and resolution of unemployment among the educated youth.
“We cast a vote. There is democracy in India,” said Shafiq, while Malik asserted that he voted for development. “Educated youth are unemployed. We have full faith in Indian democracy. We are sure people’s issues will be solved for a better tomorrow,” Malik said.
Across polling stations, voting took place amid tight security.
Near a soldier with his gun, Saja Begum in Imam Sahib village said she believed that people were coming to vote because developmental work was not done last time. “They have come with the hope that this time their work will be done.”
Meanwhile, apart from the three districts, the new constituency after delimitation also includes the Rajouri and Poonch districts of the Jammu region. These districts are primarily dominated by tribal populations.
Across four assemblies in the Rajouri district, the polling was 66.92 percent at 8 pm, up from 65 percent recorded in 2019. However, Poonch’s three assembly segments witnessed a turnout of 66.92 per cent— a decline from 70 percent witnessed in 2019.
Moreover, apart from Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha, even the seats of Baramulla and Srinagar in the Kashmir region had seen record voter turnout earlier.
According to EC, overall, the voter turnout in the three constituencies in the Valley was 50 percent, up from 19.16 percent recorded in 2019.
“People of Jammu and Kashmir, in the Anantnag-Rajouri PC polling too, have reposed faith in democracy and proved naysayers wrong,” the commission led by CEC Rajiv Kumar and ECs Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu said in a statement.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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