India poll commission sets up special booths for Kashmir migrants in Delhi

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has set up four special polling booths for the Kashmiri migrant community at various locations in Delhi, officials said last week.

Over 1.13 lakh Kashmiri migrants are registered to vote in the elections for the Anantnag, Srinagar and Baramulla parliamentary constituencies in Kashmir Valley, they said.

Of them, while Srinagar was going to the polls on Monday (13), Baramulla will vote on May 20 and Anantnag-Rajouri on May 25.

The remaining two seats -- Jammu and Udhampur -- have already voted in the first and second phase of the elections, on April 19 and 26, respectively.

“To facilitate the Kashmiri migrants residing in Delhi to cast their votes in person on the polling days during the Lok Sabha elections for seats across Jammu and Kashmir, the ECI (Election Commission of India) has established special polling booths for the community at four different locations in the capital,” an official spokesman said.

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The commission has also decided to provide free transportation facility to the Kashmiri migrants who are eligible to cast their ballots in the special booths, a Hindustan Times report said.

“The Election Commission of India, in a first, has instructed for providing free of cost to and fro transportation facility for the Kashmiri Migrants eligible to cast their ballot in these special booths”, a communication received in New Delhi last week by the office of AERO/ARO (Assistant Electoral Registration Officer and  Assistant Returning Officer), Migrants, New Delhi, read, the newspaper report added.

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“To facilitate the Kashmiri migrants residing in Delhi to cast their votes in person on the polling days during the Lok Sabha elections for seats across Jammu and Kashmir, the ECI has established special polling booths for the community at four different locations in the capital,” an official spokesman said.

These booths have been set up at Kashmir Resident Commission, 5 PR Road New Delhi; Kashmir Kissan Ghar BR-2 Shalimar Bagh Delhi; Arwachin International Public School Pocket F Dilshad Garden, Delhi and GGSSS Paprawat Najafgarh, Delhi.

A series of camps and meetings have also been organized to raise awareness and increase the percentage of Kashmiri migrant voters in the capital.

Booth-level officers are also visiting door-to-door to educate and assist the migrant voters, the official sources added.

The efforts have witnessed a notable rise in the enrollment of voters as compared to the last parliamentary elections, the sources added.

Official sources also said the Kashmiri migrants are showing keen interest in participating in the upcoming elections and a high voter turnout is expected during these polls.

(With PTI inputs)