`Only real election was in 1977 which returned Sheikh’

They believe that only in 1977, when the Sheikh returned to power with an absolute majority, were the elections untainted. Says retired school teacher Abdul Aziz: “I have seen all the elections since the fifties. I remember`Khaliq-made’ legislators. Also elections when an entire Assembly was elected unopposed. In fact, the only real election here was in 1977.”

Rigging, booth-capturing, changing ballot boxes and even outright rejection of nomination papers had turned the electoral process into a farce after 1953 when the NC had launched a massive campaign for plebiscite and Sheikh Abdullah was in jail. It is said that during this period, the then Deputy Commissioner of South Kashmir, Abdul Khaliq Malik, stage-managed the victory of 14 assembly candidates of the Congress. Hence, the reference to `Khaliq-made’ MLAs. NC general secretary Sheikh Nazir Ahmad pronounces those elections as fraud. “Those days the Election Commission could do nothing. Fortunately, things have changed for good.”

Accusing the Centre of perpetrating such a fraud, he says they (Centre) had always been trying to repeat the `Khaliq’ method through the bureaucracy. Referring to the 1996 parliamentary polls, Ahmad says EC was not fair to them byconducting elections in some constituencies after results had been declared in the entire country.

Sofi Ghulam Mohammad, who has been editing a Srinagar-based Urdu newspaper for more than three decades, believes though the autonomy issue has returned as the main plank for not only the NC but also other parties, it has lost its earlier appeal. Remembering Sheikh Abdullah as the tallest of all Kashmiri leaders, he said, “Sheikh’s words were taken as gospel truth by all Kashmiris and those who did not attend his rallies could never imagine his charisma.”

About the 1987 elections, Sofi says the people had come out to vote against corruption and nepotism but rigging changed the entire picture. “This time too, the decision of fruit growers and transporters to field their own candidates should have been welcomed. But again they were forced to withdraw.”

There are people who challenge the very legitimacy of elections. “Elections for the Constituent Assembly that had to define the basic relationship of thestate with India were never held. It was merely a selection of 75 people who decided our fate,” says Mohammad Amin Pundit, a Kashmiri scholar who had also worked as Sheikh Abdullah’s secretary. “I have never voted throughout my life for this reason.”

Pundit believes until this dispute is resolved, Kashmiris will remain indifferent towards elections. Recalling the poll process prior to the emergence of militancy, he says, “Ballot boxes have always been magic here. They are generally empty in the booths but by the time they reach the counting centres, they are full.” Massive rigging has always been a feature of the polls here, he says.

A senior state government official who has been involved in all the elections since the ’80s sees an “obvious change” in the electoral process in Kashmir. “Jubilation and enthusiasm over the elections is no longer there. In fact, everybody now sees it as a burden and wants to get over with it as quick as possible,” he says.

Remembering the 1990 parliamentaryelections, which witnessed the lowest-ever voter turnout, he says things had changed a lot since then. “I remember a TV set and a coffin lying outside a polling booth. The TV set was a reward for the first person who would show the courage to defy militants and vote. The coffin, a gift from militants for the same man for having exercised his franchise.”