In J&K, ‘free, fair’ discrepancies

Putting a question mark on Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s commitment to free and fair Assembly polls, Jammu and Kashmir has registered ...

Putting a question mark on Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s commitment to free and fair Assembly polls, Jammu and Kashmir has registered an unexplainable 17.94 per cent increase in the number of electorates over the last six years.

The growth has been higher than the average rise (five-six per cent) at the national level during the period, despite the fact that over one lakh people have died of violence or natural causes and over two lakh have migrated to other parts of the country during the 12-year long turmoil.

	‘No count of 50,000 Pandits’
NEW DELHI: The Kashmir Samiti, an apex body of migrant Kashmiri Pandit organisations, has claimed that about 50,000 members of the community remain unregistered as either migrants or voters. The samiti has been spearheading a campaign to link J-K elections with the community’s return. It has also rejected the offer of the CEC to install EVMs in migrant camps in Delhi and Jammu to enable the displaced people to cast their votes. (ENS) Story continues below this ad

The number of electorates has increased by 4.67 lakh over the last 20 months, say political leaders. Voter numbers have risen from 51.33 lakh in January 2001 to over 56 lakh as of now. Those in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer say this is likely to rise as voter registration is open till the last date for filing nomination papers.

The CEO Pramod Jain’s deputy B.S. Jamwal said: ‘‘We have deleted 1.91 lakh names from the rolls in the last year. At the same time, we received 3.65 lakh fresh claims. Of them, nearly 2.4 lakh were registered as new voters,’’ he added.

Union Minister of State for Defence and senior BJP leader Professor Chaman Lal Gupta says he has apprised the party high command of it. ‘‘I have told Jain the PM has been assuring free and fair polls in J-K. How is it possible if the electoral rolls are not genuine?’’ he added.

Sources said there were discrepancies in the rolls and census figures — the census puts the population in the Valley at 54.41 lakh, the rolls show 25.46 lakh. Census officials say this could be because security and paramilitary forces in the state were counted. Opposition parties find intriguing the 43.2 per cent rise in electorates in Gool-Arnas constituency in Udhampur district, where there has been a lot of migration.

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