The overwhelming voter interest in the Kashmir Valley as well as areas of Muslim concentration in Jammu shows that the electorate has voted in a decisive manner. No matter what spin the secessionists choose to put on this development, voters have indicated unambiguously that they have no aversion to taking part in a poll process conducted by India’s Election Commission, which has been a bugbear for separatist elements.
Such was the scale of the mobilisation in the Valley against the temporary transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board, and the fierce administrative response, including police firing, that it invited, that leading mainline politicians were nervous about the timing of the election so soon after the end of the agitation. The separatists, on the other hand, were overjoyed.
The electorate has proved them both wrong. Clearly, both sides were out of touch with the public mood. In the last election in 2002, the voter turnout had also been good in the Kashmir Valley, barring the leading urban centres, although about 700 people had been killed by terrorists for showing interest in the poll process. This time around the terrorists have not shown their hand. This has certainly been a factor in the turnout — between 50 and over 60 per cent at most polling stations in the Valley — being higher than in 2002.
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3:48 AM
Moderate Islamist here
