Girls wait in a queue outside a polling station at Handwara to cast their vote during the third phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections in Kupwara district, some 80 km from Srinagar, on Sunday.
Tribune photo: Mohd Amin War |
Kupwara, November 30
Continuing with the increasing turnout in the phased polling in Jammu and Kashmir, five constituencies of Kupwara district registered a tentative 61.32 percentage, likely to go up, in the elections held in the third phase today.
The final figures of voting from at least five polling stations across the district in north Kashmir were still awaited even as there were stray incidents of clashes and violence at three places.
Giving details, divisional commissioner, Kashmir, Masood Samoon said Karnah registered 79 per cent of polling, followed by 64.05 per cent in Lolab, 60.52 per cent in Kupwara, 59.07 per cent in Handwara and 53.56 per cent in Langate.
The polling in these constituencies has shown a gradual increase in percentage from those registered in 1996 and 2002 elections.
There have been three minor incidents of violence in today’s polling from the Karnah, Kupwara and the Lolab constituencies, which however, passed off peacefully without disturbing the poll process. An anti-election clash took place at Trehgam in the Kupwara constituency, where the police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the protesters resulting in injuries to 15 persons, including five policemen and 10 civilians. In another incident, the PSO of the NC candidate, Qaisar Jamshed Lone in the Lolab
constituency fired in air outside a polling station in the constituency. The incident had taken place after skirmishes between the supporters of two rival candidates . Another incident of clash, leading to blows, between the agent of a NC candidate and an independent candidate contesting from the Karnah constituency had taken place in Karnah area.
However, voters in different areas of the five constituencies were enthusiastic during the polling and had to wait for two to three hours outside the polling booths in the Karnah and Kupwara constituencies. The men and women in long queues at a polling station in Tangdhar were waiting for long hours to cast their vote after the EVM had got some trouble delaying the beginning of polling by one and a half hours. Away from the cry of election boycott the voters had been lining up at different polling stations since early morning. “This is Shaant Nagar”, said a voter at Tangdhar in the Karnah constituency. He lamented that many of the people were yet to get the compensation announced by the government following the devastating earthquake on October 8, 2005. There were no proper roads which led to heavy damage to the vehicles that needs to be replaced within one year, said the driver by profession. An elderly woman, Khatoon Begum, who had been waiting in a queue for one-and-a-half hour expressed unhappiness over the power shortage in the area, with no complaints on the availability of drinking water in this far-flung area.
The divisional commissioner said adequate security and related measures were in the place to ensure smooth conduct of the polls. For this purpose 11 zonal magistrates and 31 sector magistrates had been appointed. The polling staff comprised 2,112 personnel, including 10 per cent of staff as reserve for polling at 448 polling stations, while 371 micro-observers were also appointed to ensure smooth conduct of the poll process. A total of 629 EVMs were used for today’s polling, said the divisional commissioner. The fate of 71 candidates, including 32 independents and five women, was sealed in the third phase of elections
today.
