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Were the polls free and fair?

By Anjali Mody

Srinagar SEPT. 17. At the conclusion of voting in the first phase of elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Chief Electoral Officer, Pramod Jain, claimed that it was `history in the making'. He brushed aside questions on allegations of coercion and fraud. All the claims of ``free and fair'' elections suggested that New Delhi had got it right. And, as the official voter turnout figure leapt overnight from 44 to 52 per cent, the self-congratulatory applause from New Delhi emphasised its distance from the Kashmir Valley.

With the introduction of electronic voting machines, these polls must have been the most free in the recent history of the State. Even the Army and the BSF soldiers who tried to hustle voters into election booths clarified that this time, they were not telling them which party to vote for.

But ``fair'' does not follow as a natural corollary to ``free.'' And, while the official figures look good in newspaper headlines, they do not tell the whole story. For, while many Kashmiris in the five districts that went to the polls on Monday came out to vote, despite fears of violence and reprisal, whole Assembly segments stayed indoors. Because they did not feel they were free to vote.

Fear, certainly, was a factor in some areas, where gruesome attacks on political activists days before the election were warnings that only the foolhardy would have ignored. Newspapers, such as the Nida-e-Mashriq, published threats from militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, affirming that there were reasons for fear.

There was also the ``why vote when there is no one to vote for" factor. Many voters, particularly in Baramulla district, felt that the election was meaningless since it excluded the political groups, which represented their aspirations. "If the Hurriyat was in the fray, we would vote,'' was the undercurrent to the single digit turnout in so much of Baramulla.

At polling booths across the Valley where people did turn out to vote, standing in long lines exposed to risks as against out of State officials in bullet-proof gear, one thing was clear: they were doing so for reasons which had nothing to do with New Delhi's. For the most, they wanted to vote the National Conference out (although few believed that it did not have the power to rig even the EVMs).

They wanted change, they said, from the politics of "self-aggrandisement and corruption." Some simply wanted more of the same. But almost no one saw the election as New Delhi has been seeing it — the beginning of the end of the troubles in Jammu and Kashmir.

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