Sumbal springs up 36% voter turnout

As the sun rose, voters began assembling outside a dilapidated school building-turned-polling station in the Inderkoot area of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, where lack of development and influence of pro-BJP politicians, who have rebelled against the PDP, raised the voter turnout to 36 per cent on Wednesday.

Voters outside a polling station at Sumbal in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district. Tribune Photo: Amin War

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Sumbal (Bandipora) Oct 10

As the sun rose, voters began assembling outside a dilapidated school building-turned-polling station in the Inderkoot area of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, where lack of development and influence of pro-BJP politicians, who have rebelled against the PDP, raised the voter turnout to 36 per cent on Wednesday.

A heavy contingent of security forces had laid a cordon around the polling stations at Sonbaran village in Inderkoot, where poll officials had expected a massive turnout of voters.

At the end of the voting day, the majority of the voters, 786 out of 1519, were women, who had come to the polling stations of wards 9 and 11 with complaints of lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, and a shortage of power supply in Sonbaran. Both wards have 2,052 voters, who would decide the fate of six candidates, including two women, for Sumbal Municipal Committee of Bandipora. Two candidates had won uncontested from the SMC while as 33 candidates were contesting for remaining 11 wards, which saw a voter turnout of 36 per cent.

Inderkoot is considered a bastion of the influential Shiite leader, Imran Ansari, who along with local MLC Yasir Rishi had launched a rebellion in the PDP following the breakup of the PDP-BJP coalition government on June 19. They have been working closely with People’s Conference chairman Sajad Lone. “Drinking water is the basic necessity of life and we have been denied it for long. Look at this school building. Do you think students can be taught here?” said Independent candidate Shabir Ahmad Rather. His brother-in-law Muhammad Hussain, who is also contesting as an Independent candidate against the BJP and Congress candidates, is also popular among the voters. Both brothers-in-law are considered close to PDP rebel leader Yasir Rishi, a close aide of Lone. However, two other poll-bound municipalities of north Kashmir – Langate and Watergam – didn’t witness similar scenes. Due to killing of local militants recently in Langate, the vote percentage was 5 per cent while in Watergam 19 of the 270 voters cast their vote.

Voter turnout
Sumbal 35.64 per cent
Watergam 7.03 per cent
Langate 5 per cent