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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Despite a poll boycott by Kashmiri Pandit organisations in the capital, a few voters turned up to vote at the J&K House and Sainik Board polling booths in New Delhi and Old Delhi respectively.
Though over 2000 Kashmiri Pandits, out of a much larger number who have made Delhi their home, are eligible for voting, only fifty-five have registered their names in the latest electoral rolls.
Between 7 am and 3pm only fourteen Kashmiri Pandits turned up for voting at the J&K House on Prithviraj Road in the heart of New Delhi.
Ashok Kumar Kachhru, who retired as the head cashier at J&K House, said he voted because he happened to be in the vicinity.
He said that though five members of his family are eligible to vote, only he and his wife have their names in the electoral list.
"Names of our three children do not figure in the list despite the fact that we had filled up the requisite forms weeks before the list was announced. My wife is out of town and hence she could not vote," he said.
Residents of Baramulla district, Kachhru and his family had fled the Valley in 1990.
"The Pandit organisations have taken the right decision to boycott the polls. Even if we vote, our plight is not going to change," he argued.
P L Tikkoo, a veteran television sound recordist, told rediff.com that he and his brother B B Tikkoo have now enlisted themselves as voters in New Delhi and hence lost interest in the elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
Dr Shakti Bhan, a Kashmir Pandit leader, strongly defended the decision taken by Kashmiri Pandit organisations to boycott the polls because no candidate had come to them to tell what he/she stood for.
"Why should we vote when you cannot give us our homes, our lives back? This is a fundamental right under the Constitution of India. Right to vote comes later. By voting in exile, we would accept that we are going to live in exile. This is something that we are not prepared to given in to. We the Kashmiri Pandits have as much right to live in Kashmir as the Kashmiri Muslims do," she said.
Jammu and Kashmir Elections 2002: The complete coverage
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