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As Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, accompanied by his son and National Conference president Omar Abdullah, reached the polling station located in the Burn Hall school in Sonwar locality to cast his vote, they found the place deserted.
The Abdullahs were the first to cast their votes, but were followed only by a handful of others.
The situation in other polling booths in Srinagar city was no different.
"We are waiting for voters, but so far none has turned up," said a poll official at Khanyar relaxing inside a polling booth.
The poll boycott call given by the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) evoked a near total response in the summer capital. Polling booths in the eight constituencies in Srinagar district were almost empty. The Hurriyat's call for a bandh (strike) completely crippled life in Srinagar.
The streets wore a deserted look and, worse, residents woke up to massive explosions and heavy gun fire between some militants and security forces in Gogji Bagh locality.
Downtown Srinagar resembled a ghost town and there was not a soul on the streets when this correspondent visited the area.
"We don't want a new government. We want a permanent solution of the Kashmir problem," said Abdul Rashid, standing in an alley.
"Even if they drag us to poll booth, we will not vote. Elections have failed to bring about peace and solve the long standing problem," said another resident Mehrajuddin.
However, the ruling National Conference refuses to see the writing on the wall. At Khanyar, NC candidate and Works Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar said, "There is no disinterest in the polling. Militants have issued threats, but polling will pick up later in the afternoon."
Towards evening, Chief Electoral Officer Pramod Jain announced that the poll percentage in the second phase was over 42 per cent. "It may go up further after we get full details on Wednesday from all the constituencies covered in this phase."
But Mohammad Ayub, the poll official in the Burn Hall polling booth, said that, till 1545 hours, "Of the 983 persons eligible to vote in this polling centre, only 34 turned up. I hear the position is no better in the rest of the city."
"With this fiasco in the state capital, the government's claim about the successful in the first round of polling has been exposed," Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani Bhat told rediff.com.
Interestingly, a leading Urdu daily Srinagar Times, whose editor was attacked recently by unidentified gunmen, carried a front page cartoon showing a poll official crying out for human company in an empty booth.
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