56.07% migrants cast vote

Shangus records highest 63.3 %, Khanyar lowest 29.53 %  

PS BALI

Jammu, Dec 14: In the fourth and penultimate phase of Assembly elections, over 56 percent Kashmiri Migrant voters cast their vote for sixteen constituencies of Kashmir on Sunday, officials said.

Out of total 21, 881 M-Form migrant voters, 12,269 cast their vote at 26 polling stations in Jammu, Udhampur and New Delhi.

Shangus constituency in Anantnag district of south Kashmir witnessed highest poll participation with 63.03 percent, while Khanyar saw lowest participation of KP migrants with just 29.53 percent.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, SK Fotedar (AERO/ARO (M) Delhi told Greater Kashmir that over 40 percent participation was recorded in Delhi, wherein out of total 496 registered M-Form voters, only 202 cast their vote, at four polling stations. He maintained that ‘low voter turnout was because of bad weather.  “Due to bad weather a large number of people preferred not to go out”, he said.

ARO (M) Jammu, Sachin Dev Singh said that Jammu witnessed highest percentage of migrant voter participation with 56.65 percent voters casting their vote. “Out of 20955, 11870 cast their vote at 21 polling stations,” he said.

Similarly, Ranjit Singh ARO(M) Udhampur shared that 45.81 percent KP migrant voter participation was recorded at lone polling booth in Udhampur, wherein out of 430 registered voters, only 197, including 112 males and 85 females, cast their vote.

The authorities had established 114 special polling booths on 21 locations at Jammu, four in Delhi NCR and one at Udhampur to facilitate the migrant voters to cast their vote.

According to election officials, among the 52,898 migrant voters, only 21,881 had filled up the M Forms to cast their vote.

As per the official data, 16 constituencies spread over Central Kashmir district of Srinagar and South Kashmir districts of Anantnag and Shopian had a total number of 52,898 migrant votes, while the M Forms had been filled up by 21,881 migrant voters only, which was much less than half of the total number of voters.

While eight constituencies of Srinagar district including Habbakadal, Amirakadal, Hazratbal, Idgah, Khanyar, Sonawar and Batamallo had a total number of 30,773 migrant voters, the six constituencies of Anantnag district including Anantnag, Dooru, Kokernag, Shangus, Bijbehara and Pahalgam had a total number of 18398 voters.

The two constituencies of Shopian district including Assembly segment of Wachi and Shopian had a total number of 3727 votes.

Habbakadal has highest number of 16,271 migrant voters, which was followed by Bijbehara in Anantang district with 5056 migrant voters. Zadibal Assembly segment in Srinagar has lowest number of 421 migrant votes, followed by Idgah with 723 votes.