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A problematic phase

APPREHENSIONS OF THE third phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls proving to be the most difficult from the standpoint of warding off the terrorist threat have indeed come true. Marked as it was by well over 20 poll-specific attacks that left at least 16 persons dead, the process gone through on October 1 in 27 constituencies across four districts can hardly be said to answer the parameters of a peaceful and violence-free exercise in the way the earlier two phases did. In fact, the fair degree of credibility achieved in the first two rounds of the poll is what turned the jehadi elements even more desperate in their attempt to scuttle the process in the remaining phases. Incidentally, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen is reported to have claimed `credit' for most of the terrorist attacks. To some extent, the subversive groups would seem to have succeeded in unleashing terror and preventing prospective voters from stepping out of their homes in areas that already had a `history' of heightened militancy, by targeting polling booths and election officials, besides of course the security personnel. And this is reflected in the strikingly abnormal divergence in the voter turnout between one district and another as also at the inter-segment level and, in some cases, even within a constituency.

As far as statistics go, the overall average turnout, placed provisionally at 41 per cent, is only marginally lower than what was recorded in the second phase (September 24). True to the perceived pattern, the Jammu region has registered a significantly higher percentage of polling than the Valley, with Udhampur district posting a tally of 56 and Kathua 59, as against Anantnag's 25 and Pulwama's 28. What makes Kathua's performance — a more than respectable turnout which also happened to be the highest for the October 1 round — truly commendable is that it came against the scary backdrop of a major Kaluchak-type terrorist attack on bus passengers carried out just an hour or two before the polling was due to commence, and it is a measure of the average Kathua voter's willpower and courage of conviction in democracy. The view that a distinctive urban-rural divide characterises voter participation, with the cities and towns tending to be more apathetic or wary for various reasons — fear of the militant's gun, clout of the separatist groups and so on — seems to stand reinforced by the voting pattern in the latest phase.

With three of the four phases of elections to the 87-member Assembly over and only Doda district (6 seats) remaining to go to the polls in the final phase on October 8, the voter turnout this time around does not compare favourably with the State average in 1996, put officially at 53.92 per cent. But the 1996 tally has to be seen in the unedifying context of serious allegations of large-scale rigging and coercion, which had the inevitable effect of eroding the very credibility of the whole exercise. A redeeming feature of the ongoing process is that it has been far less vulnerable to such accusations, thanks to the Government of India's open commitment to ensuring a `free and fair' poll and the Election Commission's several initiatives at the organisational and procedural levels to realise that objective, not to speak of the pressure associated with the international scrutiny that the event has attracted. The alacrity with which the poll panel responded to genuine complaints of the Congress and the People's Democratic Party against the deployment of State police personnel for sensitive election-related duties is illustrative of the Commission's acute consciousness about its role as referee. There have, of course, been some allegations of coercion by security personnel, heard particularly during the first phase, but they have largely been in the nature of aberrations, not so pervasive or grave as to discredit the exercise itself.

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