Jammu-Kashmir assembly polls phase 1: Voter turnout stands at 59%, no violence reported

Indian Union Territory Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (Sep 18) voted in phase one of assembly polls, the first after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. The Election Commission of India (ECI) said that the tentative voter turnout across the 24 assembly seats stood at 59 per cent. The turnout was expected to increase as voting was still going on in remote areas of the Pir Panjal Mountain range.

The voting process concluded without any untoward incident or violence. A multi-cornered contest was observed in most of the seats as major local parties as well as Jamaat-e-Islami backed independent candidates entered the electoral fray.

The voter turnout rate didn’t see any major change from the 2014 assembly polls held in the region. As per the data from the ECI, the 2014 polls saw a voter turnout rate of 60.19 per cent.

Interestingly, regions most affected by militancy in the Shopian district recorded higher turnout than the previous elections. However, voter turnout in the neighbouring Pulwama district dropped by a couple of percentage points.

Of all, the biggest drop was witnessed in the Shangus-Anantnag segment where only 52.94 per cent of voters exercised their voting rights. The figure in previous elections 10 years ago stood at 68.78 per cent.

Similarly, in the Damhal Hanjipora segment, just 52.94 per cent of people showed up at the polling booths, against 69 per cent 10 years back.

Kokernag, now designated as a reserved constituency for Scheduled Tribes following the delimitation, experienced a turnout decline of over seven percentage points, with only 58.00 per cent of the electorate participating in the voting process.

The Inderwal segment, however, reported an 80 per cent turnout, an increase from the 75.72 per cent recorded a decade ago. In contrast, the neighbouring Kishtwar constituency saw a decrease in turnout from 78.23 per cent to 75.04 per cent.

(With inputs from agencies)