Even though 24 hours have passed, the euphoria over the NC’s rout in Jammu and Kashmir is yet to die down. The city, which had largely chosen to stay away from voting in the second phase, has been glued to the TV sets since Thursday keenly after ruling party’s reverses. The hung Assembly and the horsetrading such a fractured outcome is bound to spark off hasn’t dampened the all-round festive spirit in any manner. For the violence-weary public, the end of the NC’s 50-year-old hegemony and the fall of the Abdullahs is enough. ‘‘Get Out NC’’, ‘‘Abdullahs go to London’’ has been on every lip ever since the first result in favour of the PDP trickled in yesterday forenoon. Kashmir’s gossip mills — barber shops, street corners, and lanes — haven’t stopped talking of the change. Almost every other person talks about it, least bothered whether it would be be the Congress or the PDP — or both — in the saddle next. The NC sitting in the Opposition benches is all that matters. Soaking in the the carnival-like atmosphere — in sharp contrast to the ghost town it was on September 24 — people hug each other with congratulatory words. ‘‘A new dawn has descended. I can feel the changed air. It is so beautiful to breathe again, now that the days of repression are over,’’ said Mohammad Yasin, a trader at Lal Chowk. He said though 90,000 lives have been ‘‘unofficially’’ lost in last 13 years of turmoil in Kashmir, ‘‘the repression unleashed by the NC through its Special Task Force and Special Operation Group of Police for past six years, accounts for almost half of this’’. Perhaps, Election Commission did the right thing this time: Confined the two forces to their barracks in the last two phases of polling. ‘‘Let me be frank. The use of EVMs this time kept the suspense on till the last minute. When I woke up, I wasn’t sure NC was on its way out. Seeing the results I can say these were the fairest of polls,’’ said Farooq Ahmad, a downtown barber. It was these downtown pockets that chose to boycott polls more than their uptown counterparts. However as the news began pouring in, the ‘‘rumour’’ of a hartal to protest counting took a backseat. The congested Kashmir lanes were agog with news of the change in the political guard. ‘‘Had we known the trends, we would have voted,’’ said a Safakadal youngster. Here in the city, people who voted never admit to fearing reprisals. ‘‘After voting some people even put bandages on index finger to hide the ink mark,’’ the youth said. The celebrations have seen sales at sweet shops and bakers rocket. Shakti Sweets and Modern Sweets, on Residency Road, played host to merry-makers, who had chosen to abstain from voting. ‘‘It’s a vote against non-performance. And whosoever among the NC did work, won,’’ said a youth from downtown Khanyar.
