Shruti Vyas from Srinagar
Srinagar. What was expected happened. As usual, Srinagar witnessed low voter turnout. Whereas, record voting was done on those seats which are decisive in the victory or defeat of BJP vs NC-Congress alliance. These are the eight seats of Rajouri and Poonch districts of Pir Panjal. According to the data till now, 70 and 74 percent voting has taken place in these two districts respectively. BJP has wooed Muslim Paharis, Bakarwals and Gujjars by giving them importance and ST reservation on these seats. But the enthusiasm with which voting has taken place on these seats is surprising. In the assembly seats of these two districts, Rajouri (70 percent voting), Medhar (70 percent), Surankot (72 percent), Budhal (70 percent), Poonch Haveli (70 percent), Thanamandi (68 percent) witnessed strong voting. Along with this, Nowshera (69% voting) and Kalakote (66% voting), where Hindu votes are more, there are also indications of a close fight from today’s voting. In Surankot seat itself, huge crowd had gathered in the rally of Rahul Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah and its impact is reflected in today’s voting.
But low voter turnout in the capital Srinagar (29.24% voting) and good voting in Budgam (61.31% voting) and Ganderbal (62.63% voting) directly means that the contest is definitely tough for the anti-NC-Congress independents and PDP. Those candidates who were fighting against the National Conference were hardly able to get their supporters out of their homes. Those voters were found to vote more who, for some unknown reason, were adamant that after casting their vote, they should wipe off the ink from their fingers before coming out of the polling booth.
I repeatedly observed in Srinagar and Ganderbal that as soon as they left the polling booth, voters wiped, rubbed and rubbed their fingers so that no mark of voting remained on them. And this included everyone – women and men, young and old, rich and poor.
At a polling booth in Ganderbal, a 70 or perhaps 80-year-old man told me angrily, “I am feeling suffocated for the last ten years.”
The second comment was by Zarif Ahmad Zarif – “This vote is against oppression. And to tell Pakistan that we are alive.”
Zarif Ahmad Zarif is said to be an intellectual, poet and social worker of Kashmir. He is a short, thin old man. He is 81 years old and looks the same age. But the passion, enthusiasm and anger in his voice was impossible to ignore.
These two elderly people had come out to vote because they were angry. They wanted to take revenge. And it is almost certain that they would have pressed the EVM button which according to them was against oppression. But both of them did not want to get their photo taken with their inked finger. Zarif Ahmed Zarif wiped the ink from his finger as soon as he came out after casting his vote. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the ink before it left its mark. They were not even ready to get their photo taken while standing outside the polling booth.
And Zarif was not alone in this matter.
I saw Zarif Ahmad express his anger. He was using Hindi only to criticize the government for hoisting the tricolour on Hari Parbat. I saw in him the Kashmiri mentality that will never change, no matter the times and how much the circumstances change, and the mentality that every new generation will inherit from the previous generation. The Kashmiri mentality I am talking about is of those who belong to the era of Sheikh Abdullah, who want to get all the benefits and rights of democracy but who do not know where they actually belong? Those who want to vote against the oppression of the last ten years but want to turn a blind eye to the oppression of the last thirty or more years. Those who want to appear democratic, but secretly. Those who want change but do not know what that change should be like.
However, today’s voting did not have the same enthusiasm, excitement and atmosphere that was there in the first round of voting in South Kashmir on September 18. It was missing in the second round of voting in Central Kashmir today. By 9 am, only 4.70 percent votes had been cast in Srinagar and in Ganderbal, where the voting percentage in the last election was 67.7 percent, only 12.61 percent voters had pressed the button till then. As the day progressed, the heat started increasing and the polling booths started becoming empty. There was no bustle in the streets and lanes of the villages of Ganderbal, which was there in Kulgam on September 18. That day, journalist brothers were running from one district to another. But this time, they had lunch comfortably and ended the coverage in boredom. They too were affected by the indifference of the voters.
Overall, apathy dominated the second round of polling in central Kashmir. There was some enthusiasm in Ganderbal in the early morning but after that, I saw natural beauty but no enthusiastic voters. There were no long queues outside the polling booths. Yes, there were some people who were keeping an eye on the voters going in and out of the polling booths. They may have been mere spectators. But I feel that they were watching the voters very carefully. They had no interest in talking to others. They were not ready to say anything about the elections or the candidates. But they were watching everything with keen eyes. Were the thoughts of ‘oppression’ and ‘suffocation’ on their minds?
While the desire for change was paramount in the first phase, the second phase was a wave of emotions – a wave that was ready to burst out of the hearts of the people. They wanted to vote against Modi and Shah but were so scared that they were erasing the ink marks on their fingers. But then there is also the question that in the second phase of voting in Kashmir, people in urban Srinagar and Ganderbal and Budgam did not come out to vote in a way that gave the impression that they were angry and sad about the atrocities that happened in the last ten years. (Copy: Amrish Hardenia)