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In a notification, the Election Commission (EC) said on Thursday that Kashmiri Pandit migrants staying in Jammu and Udhampur districts need not fill the “Form M” for casting their votes in their native parliamentary constituencies in the Valley. The EC said they would now be “mapped” with special polling stations to be set up in the zones that they are residing in currently.
It has been more than a month since voting ended in Udhampur-Doda parliamentary constituency. Retired Army Subedar Chandra Singh and Naib Tehsildar Kuldeep Singh have spent all their waking hours – if not the sleeping hours – in this time watching LED screens installed in a garage of the Government Degree College here, with only a pedestal fan to fight the heat.
In the first election being held in the reconstituted Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, which brings large parts of Jammu province into the Kashmir constituency, the clincher is expected to be the sharpened ethnic divide between the Gujjars and Paharis.
Even before the Election Commission took up the matter, the BJP Tuesday expelled a senior party leader, Satish Bhargav, for making a “hate speech” during the poll campaign in border Poonch district’s Mendhar town against some Pahari leaders owing allegiance to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference. The PDP has approached the EC on the issue.
Four days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah appealed to Kashmiris to vote for any party except the Congress, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the BJP has defended its decision not to field any candidate in the Valley for the Lok Sabha elections, saying that it is supporting “patriotic’’ parties there.
WITH THE CONGRESS having fielded the controversial Choudhary Lal Singh, who had publicly supported the accused in the 2018 gang rape and murder of a minor Bakerwal girl in Kathua, from Udhampur-Doda, its allies have been forced to go back on their criticism of him.
After 15 years, the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir is headed for a keen contest, with prominent leaders in the fray from the BJP and Congress.
Among the leaders who joined the Congress Wednesday was Choudhary Lal Singh, who had to step down as minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government of Jammu and Kashmir over his public defence of the accused in the 2018 Kathua gang rape and murder case.