UPDATE - High voter turnout marks first major poll in Kashmir since loss of autonomy

UPDATES WITH VOTER PARTICIPATION, BACKGROUND, CHANGES HEADER, DECK, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Hilal Mir

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) - A high voter turnout marked the first major election in the Indian-administered Kashmir after the region was divested of its political autonomy by the Hindu nationalist Indian government on Aug. 5, 2019.

Compared to 14% in the 2014 parliamentary elections, election officials announced 35.75% voting by 5 p.m. local time (1130GMT) in an electorate of 1.75 million spread over the capital Srinagar and four rural districts.

In the past, pro-freedom parties would urge people to boycott elections as, according to them, India cited these polls as an endorsement of its rule over the region that is also claimed in full by Pakistan. This time, no such call was made, as most of the pro-freedom leadership is in jails on various charges.

Regional pro-India political parties have pitched the elections as a referendum on New Delhi’s 2019 decision and their campaigning largely centered around it.

Mohammad Rafiq Tantray, a resident of Pulwama district, said he was voting for the first time since the insurgency erupted in 1989. He told Anadolu that he loathed anyone who used to vote in defiance of boycott calls.

“But 2019 changed my perception. There should be someone who can speak against the abrogation of autonomy. There should be someone who can speak when Kashmiris have been silenced,” he said.

Pulwama is the native district of Waheed-ur-Rahman Parra, one of the contestants for Srinagar seat. He was among dozens of politicians who were arrested immediately before or after Aug. 5, 2019. Many voters said they voted for him because of his “uncompromising” stand on the abrogation of autonomy.

Parra is the candidate from People’s Democratic Party, which was an ally of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government from 2015 to 2018. The BJP has claimed scrapping of the region’s autonomy as one of its crowning achievements along with the construction of a temple over a razed medieval mosque.

In the capital Srinagar, many supporters of Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, another vocal opponent of the 2019 decision and strong contender for the seat, echoed similar sentiments.

“Our voices have been choked. My vote will speak for my anger,” said Aqeel Hussain, a first-time voter from downtown Srinagar.

On Sunday, Parra wrote on X that a top police officer had allegedly directed his officers to “minimize voter turnout by detaining, harassing our workers.”

“Such actions serve the interests of anti-national elements, not India,” Parra wrote. Similar allegations were made by former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is contesting from Baramulla seat and two political parties, Apni Party, an ally of BJP and People’s Conference, which has been accused of being a proxy of the ruling party.

Police, however, said the statements and “speculations of political parties suggesting they had been harassing party workers in different ways at the behest of the other is without basis.”

Polls in Srinagar were simultaneously held across 10 Indian states and union territories for 98 parliamentary seats.

Fourth phase of the seven-phase Indian general elections completed on Monday.

In 2019, the BJP-led Indian government scrapped Article 370 and Article 35(A) of the Indian Constitution that granted Jammu and Kashmir powers to have its own constitution and flag and barred outsiders from buying properties or taking government jobs. The region was also downgraded from a state into two federally ruled territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Minus the one parliamentary seat of Ladakh, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will now send five parliamentarians to the 543-seat Indian parliament -- three from the Muslim-majority Kashmir province and two from the Hindu-majority Jammu province.

Polls for the two Jammu seats have already been completed in the earlier phases of the multi-phase polls. In terms of numbers, the five seats from the region are not significant but in the backdrop of the Aug. 5 decision, they have a comparatively greater symbolic value. This was evident from the campaigning, which centered around the scrapping and its larger political ramifications.