Srinagar/Patna: The second phase of polling in the Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand was peaceful with the states registering 71 per cent and 65 percent polling respectively.
Jammu and Kashmir’s 1.5 million voters defied the select killings, sneak attacks, and grenade explosions to cast their votes. Also the threats issued by separatist outfits in the past week failed to have had any impact on the voters’ fortitude.
Reports said that a large number of people gathered outside the border villages across the de facto border to watch people on the Indian side turning up at polling booths to cast their vote.
Yet, unlike the first phase of the elections held on November 25 which didn’t have any untoward incident taking place anywhere, Tuesday’s polling witnessed sporadic incidents of violence and clashes between irate crowds and the police, leaving scores injured.
At places, mainly in Kulgam district of southern Kashmir, sections of people boycotted polling for varied reasons. While some said they were obeying the separatists’ poll boycott diktat, for others, including more than 4,500 voters of Bugam and Panivah villages, it was the “step-motherly treatment” meted out to them by successive governments that they had decided to stay away from voting in protest.
In Kunan and Poshpora villages of frontier Kupwara, victims of the February 1991 mass rape incident held protest demonstrations in front of some polling stations. The protesters, witnesses said, were holding banners and placards demanding that the guilty soldiers be brought to justice.
In left wing extremism affected Jharkhand, the fate of two former chief ministers — Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda — besides many prominent leaders was locked in voting machines in the second phase of the polls amid tight security arrangements.
The bloodbath by Maoists in Chhattisgarh that borders Jharkhand didn’t dampen the spirit of the voters as state military police and Central forces provided adequate security cover.
Almost all the 20 seats, seats that went to the polls on Tuesday in this phase witnessed a high turnout.
