Srinagar, May 6 : As many as 299 polling booths in Pulwama and Shopian district saw no voting in Monday’s elections to the Anantnag Parliamentary seat, sources said. There were 695 polling booths set up in the twin districts spread over six assembly segments of Pampore, Tral, Pulwama, and Rajpora in Pulwama and two in Shopian—Shopian and Wachi.
Sources said 266 polling booths in Pulwama district and 37 in Shopian—28 in Shopian assembly segment and 9 in Wachi witnessed zero votings.
Sources said that nine polling booths saw less than seven votes cast in Wachi and 14 booths were such were less than five votes were polled in Shopian, they said. Thin attendance of voters was also witnessed elsewhere in the two districts and there was only a few places where people could be seen lined up in queues waiting for their turn to cast votes.
Officials at several polling stations were idling around, while government forces maintained a vigil against possible disruption by miscreants.
Reports said deserted roads were leading to polling stations with no or a few voters and the overbearing presence of government forces were dominant scenes in the twin districts with Pulwama witnessing little more than two percent voting while polling percentage remained below 3 percent in Shopian district in the last of the three-phased elections for parliamentary Anantnag seat.
As per officials, 2.14 percent voting was recorded in Pulwama and at the same time, Shopioan district, spread over two assembly segments, saw 2.88%.
Pulwama district had 351,314 electors including 181,259 males, 169,508 females, 541 service electors (533 male and eight female) and six transgender voters. 450 polling stations were set up across the district.
Similarly, Shopian district has 171,216 electors including 89,868 males, 81,227 females, 116 service electors (113 male and three female) and five transgender voters. The EC had set up 245 polling stations across the district.
The candidates in the fray were Hasnain Masoodi of Jammu Kashmir National Conference, Sofi Yousuf of BJP, Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Congress, Mehbooba Mufti of Jammu Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party, Nisar Ahmad Wani of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, Choudhary Zaffar Ali of Jammu Kashmir People’s Conference, Sanjay Kumar Dhar of Manav Adhikar Party, Surinder Singh of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and Independents Imtiyaz Ahmad Rather, Ridwana Sanam, Riyaz Ahmad Bhat, Zubair Masoodi, Shams Khwaja, Ali Mohammad Wani, Ghulam Mohammad Wani, Kyasir Ahmed Sheikh, Manzoor Ahmad Khan and Mirza Sajad Hussain Beigh.
