J&K local polls: In absence of campaign, many voters get to know candidates at poll booth

End of the day, 119 votes — 65 by men and 54 by women — were polled for election to Kokernag Municipal Committee in south Kashmir’s Anantnag as a drone hovered above the polling station and men in uniform dominated the landscape. Of the 13 wards under the committee, votes were polled for four — eight remained uncontested and no nomination was filed for one. Polling percentage recorded in the district was 7.3 per cent.

In the first two hours of polling, 49 votes were polled and in one of the wards, only the two candidates turned up to vote for themselves. Polling picked up in the afternoon.

The contest in Kokernag is between the Congress and Independent candidates. In the 2014 Assembly polls, the constituency had elected a PDP nominee.

Voters said that despite threats and boycott calls, “empowering those from among” themselves was a key reason that brought them to the polling booth. “There will always be fear and threats, but these are people from among us. It is not like voting in Assembly, where we never see the elected candidates again,” Ghulam Mohammad told The Indian Express.

Electoral staff at Teelipora and Hangal Gund booths waited for voters all day. Two votes were polled at one and four at the other before polling ended. One reason, the staff explained, was that the booths were more than a kilometre from these villages and “people would not travel this far to vote”.

A candidate at the polling station said, “We are 80 km from the capital which is where the ministers sit and rarely come here. This way we will be able to take at least a few decisions for ourselves.”

He said he is struggling to show his election expense to the commission since there was no campaign, “I could only make personal appeals. Not a single poster or banner was made.”

A student and a first-time voter, who cast her vote, said: “It was a tough decision to step out and we barely knew who was contesting but if we do not vote, our issues will not get resolved.”

Internet services in the area remained suspended to prevent any untoward incident.