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KPs draw flak for ‘tepid response’ to poll process

JAMMU: Displaced Kashmiri migrants have come under sharp criticism for allegedly evincing no interest in casting their votes for three parliamentary seats of Kashmir Valley owing to the “cumbersome” procedure for filling the M-forms.

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Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 23

Displaced Kashmiri migrants have come under sharp criticism for allegedly evincing no interest in casting their votes for three parliamentary seats of Kashmir Valley owing to the “cumbersome” procedure for filling the M-forms.

The issue has triggered a massive debate on social media, with the displaced Kashmiri migrants terming it a “vilification campaign against them by some people without knowing the factual position and ground realities”.

Last week, the low participation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) in the electoral process for two parliamentary seats of Kashmir Valley, Baramulla and Srinagar, triggered a debate on social media, with stakeholders questioning the “lack of interest” shown by KPs despite the fact that their vote bank could be the deciding factor in the victory of a candidate.

“Only 10 per cent KPs voted for the two Lok Sabha seats of Kashmir Valley despite the fact that two KP MLCs from the BJP and right from the PM to each chowkidar is concerned about the ‘plight’ of this community,” read a social media post while questioning KPs for staying away from the electoral process.

The KP members claimed that nearly 50 per cent voters did not find their names in the voter lists due to cumbersome M-forms’ procedure. “Unless this cumbersome procedure of M-forms is dispensed with, it is difficult for KPs to vote in their home state in large numbers,” a KP member said.

According to official statistics, there were 4,790 voters, who had filled their M-forms, were cleared by the election authorities after scrutiny to cast their vote for the Srinagar constituency, of which 2,200 electors exercised their franchise. There were over 38,000 Kashmiri migrants voters for this seat.

In the Baramulla seat, out of the 21,136 registered migrant voters, as many as 4,593 migrants had filled their M-Forms, but only 2,491 voters turned up to vote.

Pertinently, the migrant voters had also drawn a flak for allegedly showing no interest in the voting process during the by-election to the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in 2017 when only 2.52 per cent migrant voters exercised their right to franchise for the Srinagar seat.

Out of the total number of 38,278 migrant voters in the constituency, only 970 Kashmiri migrants had turned up to cast their vote at the 23 special polling stations set in at Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi at that time. A total of 2,192 migrants had filled their M-forms to cast their votes for the Srinagar seat, while others did not evince interest in casting their votes owing to the cumbersome procedure.

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