Boycott-prone Lower Qaziabad votes

In Lower Qaziabad area of Langate, which has a history of boycotting elections, people came out in good number to exercise their franchise braving bone-chilling cold on Friday.

In Yaroo village of Lower Qaziabad where last time not a single candidate came forward to contest either the Sarpanch or Panch elections, a good number of people took part in the elections.

   

Winning Sarpanch candidate Azad Ahmad Bhat said that his village is at a walking distance from tehsil headquarters Langate but lags behind in all basic amenities, resulting in hardships to the inhabitants.

Azad, who is M.Sc. Chemistry and teaches at a coaching centre in Handwara said, “I never took part in the electoral process earlier but the miseries of our villagers forced me to contest polls. We had been deprived and discriminated by the successive dispensations on the pretext of boycotting elections. So, I decided to break the shackles.”

Azad, who won with a margin of 12 votes, is optimistic of the development of his village.

“The credit for my victory goes to my friends who helped me make up my mind to contest polls and stood by my side,” the newly-elected Sarpanch said.

In Udipora, Sahipora and Lokipora villages of Lower Qaziabad where previously nobody came forward to contest Sarpanch and Panch elections, several candidates were in the fray and a good turnout was recorded.  People here also voted for their favorite DDC candidates.

The villages of Yaroo, Udipora, Ganapora, Soper Naghama, Mandigam, Sahipora, Palpora, Khahipora, Kachloo, Wangam in Lower Qaziabad had never shown interest in exercising their franchise but the scenes were different on Friday.

Notably only 2 percent of polling was recorded the last time in the parliament elections but this time people, braving intense cold, came out to vote in the boycott-prone villages.

The Government Middle School Sahipora which had two polling booths witnessed 29.4 percent polling and out of total 1257 votes 367 were polled.

The winning candidate Zareefa got 253 votes while her opponent Dilshada bagged 114 votes.

Hyhama the other DDC constituency which went to polls today had 27 candidates in the fray and among them was a PhD scholar, Anayetullah Wani.

Wani, who is pursuing PhD in English from Damam University in Saudia Arabia, told Greater Kashmir that he had no intention to participate in the DDC polls but after his return from Daman in June this year, he felt everything in his surroundings was out of order and consequently decided to contest DDC polls as an independent candidate.

Hyhama constituency witnessed 50.88 percent voting while Qaziabad witnessed 42.11 percent and in aggregate 46.2 percent polling was recorded on both the constituencies.

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