Mubashir Naik
Large queues of voters lined up in various polling booths set up in the Bassi kurd area of Bari Brahmana in Jammu on Tuesday morning during the second phase of polling for the District Development Committee.
People came out to vote in large numbers at around 7 AM when the polling begun and since then people have been turning up in large numbers to cast their ballot.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat several voters said that their only purpose to vote is to defeat the Bhartiya Janta Party’s communal agenda and the way they have been spilling communal hatred in Jammu Kashmir.
“Bhartiya Janta Party has always deceived people in the name of Ram and Hinduism, they have done nothing for the development of the general Public, the public has been suffering since they came into power,” Upal Chand, a voter told The Kashmiriyat.
He said that since their rise into power, the Bhartiya Janta party has always played communal politics but failed to address the real issues. “They do not have copyright over Ram or Hinduism.”
Bodh Raj another voter accused the Bhartiya Janta party of depriving the farmers of irrigation facilities. “The roads, the schools, the infrastructure in these villages of Jammu are built by the previous Government, the BJP has done nothing other than befooling people in the name of Hinduism,” he told The Kashmiriyat.
Several other voters also accused the Bhartiya Janta party of making attacks against the communal harmony of Jammu. In this area, which once was considered to be fortress of Bhartiya Janta Party, people are saying that their politics of communalism has forced the people to come out and vote against them.
Demand for Statehood/ Restoration of Land Laws
Various activists from the region have staged protests against the Bhartiya Janta party after the imposition of New Land laws in Jammu Kashmir and demanded a rollback of the laws.
Jammu-based Political parties including the National Panthers Party, Dogra Front, and others have demanded that the Government should restore the statehood and called the new land Laws ‘discriminative’.
Many youth are anguished at the ‘unliterally’ passed laws and say the policies are aimed at keeping a large vote bank intact which happens to be outside Jammu Kashmir.
A Young voter, Bunty Raj from Bari Brahmna speaking to The Kashmiriyat said, “The Bhartiya Janta party has done nothing other than befooling people, the people of Jammu gave them a clear majority in 2014 elections, but it seems they are trying to do everything within their power to make us suffer.”
He said that he cannot allow any outsider to have a share in the local jobs and the local lands. “This is not why we voted for BJP in the 2014 elections.”
Phase 2
As many as 321 candidates are in the fray in the second phase of the DDC polls and voting is taking place at 2,142 polling booths. As many as 7.90 lakh
voters are eligible to vote in this phase of elections.
Out of the 280 constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, 43 are going to polls in the region in this phase, 25 in Kashmir and 18 in Jammu division.
Election is also being held in 83 sarpanch constituencies for which a total of 223 candidates are contesting in the phase two.
Authorities have declared all 1,300 polling stations in the valley as sensitive.