Flip-flop on voting rights to ‘outsiders’ gives Oppn ammo

Arjun Sharma

Jammu, October 14

The recent controversy over Jammu Deputy Commissioner’s order that people living in Jammu for over one year can become voters, and its subsequent withdrawal has brought the focus of political parties back to the outsider issue as Assembly polls are expected to be held early next year.

Many Kashmir and some Jammu-based political parties have accused the government of trying to change the demography of J&K by including non-locals as voters.

Admn accused of trying to change demography

• Taking a note of some people facing hardships in registration as voters for want of documents, the DC had ordered issuance of residence certificates to those residing in Jammu for more than a year..
• Though the order was withdrawn, it triggered criticism by the Opposition, accused the administration of changing the demography .

In August, the issue had snowballed into a major controversy after the then Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Hirdesh Kumar said the UT was likely to get around 25 lakh additional voters which the Opposition parties claimed to be outsiders.

Apart from this, political parties are also raising the concerns on private and government jobs for “outsiders” and even in allotment of liquor vends. They have claimed that the abrogation of Article 370 had paved the way for non-locals to work in the UT thus sidelining the local youth.

During a public meeting in Samba recently, Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari said, “One finds only outsiders as government officials in civil secretariats and other offices while the locals have been sidelined. If we come to power, we will replace the non-local officials. Local officials will get preference.”

Senior leaders like Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP and Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference (NC) have already stated that they will not accept ‘outsiders’ voting in J&K polls. Mufti had even stated that allowing non-locals to register as voters in the UT was the last nail in the coffin of democracy.

Interestingly, Congress’ UT chief Vikar Rasool criticised the government and claimed that 51 liquor vends were sold to “outsiders”.

Most of the opposition parties are trying to rake up the issue of non-locals in Jammu division as only Kathua, Samba and Jammu districts in the region out of the total 20 in UT have majority of the industrial units where non-locals work and stay.

Meanwhile, the BJP has made its stance clear by claiming that there is nothing unconstitutional in giving voting rights to outsiders dwelling in Jammu for the past over one year. Former Deputy CM Kavinder Gupta said the order on voting rights to outsiders living in Jammu for over one year was in line with the constitutional provisions.

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