Srinagar To Vote Today In 1st Election Since Revocation Of Article 370

The Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency is voting today in the first elections since Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, was abrogated in 2019 and the state was bifurcated into two Union Territories.

What is also special about these elections is that this is the first time in the past three decades that people in the picturesque summer capital will be able to cast their ballots without a boycott call by separatists or under the shadow of violence.

The BJP has not fielded any candidate in the constituency and the main contest is between the picks of Farooq Abdullah's National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti's Peoples Democratic Party - one a victim of terrorism and the other a terror accused who is out on bail. 

National Conference candidate Aga Ruhullah Mehdi's father, Aga Syed Mehdi, an influential Shia cleric, was killed when terrorists executed a deadly IED blast in 2000. The former minister's stand on key issues and his consistent and staunch opposition to the revocation of Article 370 has won him praise even from his political opponents, including the PDP. He has also publicly apologised for failing to stop the migration of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990.

The PDP's Waheed Ur Rehman Para played a key role in the government's youth outreach when the party was in an alliance with the BJP. The government collapsed in 2018 and Article 370 was scrapped a year later. He spent around 19 months in jail under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). 

When NDTV asked Mr Para, who is the head of the PDP's youth wing, what he felt about his journey from being praised by Union Home Minister in 2017 and 2018 to facing terror charges, he said, "My story is the story of a common Kashmiri who wants to express himself democratically but is facing challenges. We are not born terrorists or stone-throwers."

A large number of political workers and polling agents from the National Conference, PDP and Altaf Bukhari's Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party, among others, have been rounded up by the police and the administration. 

While opposition parties have claimed this is an attempt to rig the elections, police officials said action has only been taken against people who have a track record of creating trouble and no political party is being targeted. Security forces have been posted at all the 2,135 polling booths. 

The Union Territory has five Lok Sabha seats - two in Jammu and three in Kashmir. It was scheduled to vote in the first five phases of the general elections, but polling was postponed in the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency due to adverse weather conditions. Voters in the seat were supposed to cast their ballots in the third phase on May 7 but will now vote in the sixth phase on May 25.