Voting rights for ‘outsiders’ in J&K leaves local parties fuming; 25 lakh new voters likely

New Delhi: Three years after abrogation of Article 370, depriving Jammu & Kashmir of its special status, comes this major development which has again left the local parties fuming and going all guns blazing against the Centre. The Election Commission has announced revision of electoral rolls for the first time and the move is likely to add 24 lakh additional voters in the electoral roll.

The announcement by Chief Electoral Officer Hirdesh Kumar drew sharp reactions from local parties & leaders, as they called it a BJP’s ‘proxy politics’ to gain power in the valley.

Former Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti lashed out at the Centre and said that this will not help BJP when the people of J&K are given the chance to vote.

According to the EC guidelines, draft electoral rolls have to be published by September 15 and after 2 months of scrutiny and updation of database, final electoral roll will be published by November 15.

Jammu & Kashmir is awaiting elections as the Delimitation Exercise was conducted recently and paved the way for democratically elected government in the Union Territory. The delimitation drive also enhanced the number of Assembly seats to 90.

NC & PDP livid, train guns at Centre

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti hit out at the Centre and accused it of running an electoral laboratory in Jammu & Kashmir.

“J&K has become a laboratory for BJP. They conduct experiment here and then implement elsewhere. All this is being done in the garb of the so-called integration of J&K with India,” the PDP chief said.

As 25 lakh ‘outsiders’ would become eligible to voter under new electoral roll, Mufti dubbed them as BJP voters.

Apart from Mufti, NC chief Omar Abdullah also slammed the move to allow non-locals to cast their votes in J&K.

“Is the BJP so insecure about support from genuine voters of J&K that it needs to import temporary voters to win seats? None of these things will help the BJP when the people of J&K are given a chance to exercise their franchise,” tweeted Omar.

Who will join the non-local ‘voters club’?

Briefing the press, Chief Electoral Officer Hirdesh Kumar said that about 25 lakh new voters are likely to be added in the final electoral list.

He informed the media on who could join the new votes list.

# For becoming voter, a person won’t need to have a domicile certificate of J&K
# Any student, staff, labourer or anyone from outside living in J&K can enlist himself/herself in the voting list.
# J&K residents working in security forces and posted outside the UT can apply for postal ballot facility.
# People from different parts of the country posted in a peace station can also enlist themselves as voters. Since Jammu is a peace station, anyone from outside posted in armed forces in the city can avail this option.
Mr Kumar also said for thousands of displaced Kashmiri Pandits, special camps will be organized at different places in Delhi, Jammu & Udhampur for their registration as new voters.