Owais Gul/ Rehan Mir
Kupwara/Bandipora/Bla, Oct 1: Just a few months changed the voting scenario in north Kashmir where the majority of voters in Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year favoured the incumbent parliamentarian, Engineer Abdul Rashid Sheikh as the electorates in the Assembly Elections—2024 were happily divided by supporting their candidates associated with different political parties.
The situation was not similar to 2024 Parliamentary elections when the large queues were seen at maximum of polling booths, favouring and supporting the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) candidate and its chief, Er Rashid, who was then in the jail persistently for the last five years.
Rashid was released on interim bail last month ahead of the assembly elections and will be in jail again tomorrow.
However, while speaking to voters at multiple polling stations in Kupwara, Baramulla and Bandipora districts, were not siding or favouring any single party, but were happily divided and siding with the candidates associated with different parties.
“The wave of Er Rashid doesn’t exist anymore. We have our candidates and we will prefer them this time,” Lateef Ahmad, a voter in Pattan constituency, said.
“Since Er Rashid was in the jail in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, we voted for him to ensure his release, but unfortunately, our votes failed to bring him out, therefore, this time, we will not waste our votes but will cast the ballots only for the development, education, jobs and other things,” Shabir Ahmad, a voter in Langate said.
Many of the voters said that they have achieved what they wanted in the Lok Sabha polls by ensuring the victory of Er Rashid. However, they believe that assembly elections are different from the parliamentary polls. “We are here to vote to give a shape to the formation of local government. We want the voters to be served by the elected candidates only as it is for the first time that the people are voting in the last one decade. We are without the government and experimenting with things would prove detrimental to the already worsening day-to-day issues here,” the voters in Baramulla constituency said.
Pertinently, the situation has changed in just three months as the Lok Sabha polls were held in April-May this year while the assembly elections have been conducted in three phases, which culminated today.
