New Delhi, Sept 23: A group of Kashmiri migrants today alleged the election machinery in the Jammu and Kashmir has not taken adequate measures to ensure their participation in the first phase of assembly polls on September 16. The complainants, mostly hailing from Kupwara but living in Jammu as migrants, alleged that out of the 554 postal ballots filed by them with the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO), only eight were counted as votes.
The group, under the banner of Handwara-Kupwara migrants welfare conference, held a demonstration in front of the election commission office here demanding intervention of CEC into the matter.
The demonstrators said the officials rejected their ballots on the pretext that there was bulk attestation by some gazetted officers and that the form 12-c submitted for postal ballots did not give the actual addresses of the voters.


Rajya Sabha member from the state S D Shariq told a news agency this cannot be the ground of a disqualification. "When people are living as migrants, how can they be expected to provide exact addresses? They have to give 'care of' addresses and moreover, migrants cannot provide exact addresses from camps".
Another grievance was that the 12-c forms were given to the migrants barely 24 hours before the deadline. "It is very difficult to complete the cumbersome process in such short time," Pandita said.

Bureau Report