{"id":53041,"date":"2024-05-13T11:04:57","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T11:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/?p=53041"},"modified":"2024-05-13T11:04:59","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T11:04:59","slug":"many-kashmiri-pandits-return-without-casting-votes-in-jammu-after-discovering-absence-of-names-on-electoral-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/13\/many-kashmiri-pandits-return-without-casting-votes-in-jammu-after-discovering-absence-of-names-on-electoral-rolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Kashmiri Pandits Return Without Casting Votes in Jammu After Discovering Absence of Names on Electoral Rolls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>JAGTI (Jammu), May 13:<\/strong> Scores of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu were unable to vote on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections due to their names missing from the electoral rolls.Even as KPs lined up across special polling stations in Jammu amid tight security, several of them had to return without casting their vote. \u201cI came to the polling station with three members of my family to cast our votes despite such heat. We carried our EPIC (Voter ID) cards too. But we found our names missing from the electoral roll. It is a denial of our right to vote,\u201d Veena, a resident of Jagti camp and a migrant from the erstwhile Habbakadal area of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, said. She said what\u2019s the use of the voter ID card if that is not enough. \u201cThey (EPIC) should be cancelled by ECI. The government wants us to vote but at the same time has a process that denies us the right to exercise our franchise.\u201d Avinash Raina and four of his family members, who hail from erstwhile Budgam area of Srinagar LS seat, also had to return without exercising their franchise. \u201cWe came here to vote. We don\u2019t figure in the voting list. What do we do now? Nobody is here to listen to us and resolve the issue,\u201d he said. Kashmiri Pandit Kuldeep Kumar and scores of electors from his colony too had to return without voting from a special polling station set up at the Agriculture office in Talab Tillo. \u201cWe found here that over 20 people were barred from voting as their names were absent from the voter list. Despite having EPIC cards, they were denied voting. There should be a probe into it,\u201d he said. Surinder Koul, another victim, said \u201cWe have raised the issue with the poll authorities\u2026. People are very angry.\u201d A Congress leader and president of Jagti tenement committee Shadi Lal Pandita said, the government will be quick to accuse the KPs of not coming out to vote. \u201cBut see the ground reality. They have EPIC cards but they do not figure in the lists. It is grave injustice.\u201d Assistant Electoral Returning Officer (AERO), Migrants, Dr Riaz Ahmed attributed the problem to old data used to prepare the lists. \u201cWe are aware of this problem. We tried to resolve these issues. We have told polling staff to allow such electors to vote,\u201d he said. As many as 52,100 Kashmiri migrants are registered as voters from Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency; of these, 25,760 are male voters and 26,340 are female voters, he said. A total of 26 polling stations have been set up for the migrants, out of which 21 are in Jammu, four in Delhi and one in Udhampur. \u201cWe have set up 21 polling stations in Jammu. In view of the increase in number of voters, we have to set up some more auxiliary polling stations. For the Srinagar constituency, we have increased the number to 23 polling stations,\u201d Ahmed said. Polling is underway in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha election in Kashmir\u2019s Srinagar constituency, with nearly 17.48 lakh voters eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the fate of 24 candidates. Voting began at 7 am at all 2,135 polling stations across the constituency, officials said. Srinagar is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with the National Conference fielding influential Shia leader Aga Ruhullah Mehdi and PDP its youth unit president Waheed Para, besides candidates from Apni Party, DPAP, and 20 others, including two women, in the fray. (Agencies)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JAGTI (Jammu), May 13: Scores of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu were unable to vote on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections due&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,54],"tags":[1032,3987,128,1033],"class_list":["post-53041","post","has-post-thumbnail","category-jammu","category-kashmir","category-latest-news","tag-earlypostdaily","tag-electoral-rolls","tag-jammu-and-kashmir","tag-latestnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53043,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041\/revisions\/53043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlypostdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}