Stone-pelting and low turnout marked the urban local body elections at highly-guarded nine polling booths in Srinagar’s Soura area on Tuesday.
The situation remained tense on the polling day (Tuesday) as intermittent stone-throwing towards these polling booths continued despite heavy deployment of police and CRPF personnel.
At 11 am, across these nine polling booths, not a single vote was recorded.
Some 500 metres away from RMEI, a polling station set up at government boys’ higher secondary school wore a deserted look. The forces deployed there had closed the school door.
“We told youth who had assembled outside that we will close the door but you must not harm us,” said a security man posted there.
Inside the school premises, the polling staff was sitting idle.
“Few votes were cast in the wee hours, but nobody came thereafter,” said a staff member. In Kanitar ward in Lal Bazar area, six votes were polled and, according to the poll staff, “four of them were cast by family members of the contesting candidate.”
In nearby Hazratbal area, people were curious to find the contestants. When this reporter tried to enquire about the names of candidates from the polling staff, they refused to divulge the details.
In Harwan area on Srinagar outskirts, polling stations wore a deserted look. In Ahmed Nagar, people had erected poles on a road leading to a polling station, and were shouting slogans in favour of election boycott.