Look who is asking people to stay away from polls!
Emulating separatists, seven independent candidates of the Srinagar parliamentary constituency has asked people to stay away from re-poll to be held in 38 polling booths across Budgam district on Thursday Mirza Sajad Hussain Beig, Haji Ghulam Hassan Dar, Engineer Sajad Reshi, Chetan Sharma, Bikram Singh, Mehraj Khurshid Malik and Farooq Ahmad Dar jointly addressed a press conference today and appealed people to boycott the polls.
Independent candidates, who were hoping to make a mark in the polls and had been pleading people to vote during canvassing, changed the tack after the large scale violence rocked central Kashmir mostly in Budgam district on Sunday. Police said eight people were killed in security forces firing while 100 security men were injured in the stone pelting on Sunday “We request the people not to come out for voting. We do not mean you any harm.
The government is tricking all of us. The blood spilled in Budgam on Sunday is still hot. The area should have been permitted to rest. They deferred polls in south Kashmir but not in this area”, they said The candidates also released the letter which they had shot off to the Chief Electoral Officer seeking “implementation of real democracy in ground level”. In the letter the candidates alleged that the decision of re-poll was taken without consulting them. “If Election Commission of India postponed election in Anantnag why they cannot postpone it in Budgam. Even they did not bother to show us the belt /control unit”, the letter reads.
Independent candidates, who were hoping to make a mark in the polls and had been pleading people to vote during canvassing, changed the tack after the large scale violence rocked central Kashmir mostly in Budgam district on Sunday. Police said eight people were killed in security forces firing while 100 security men were injured in the stone pelting on Sunday “We request the people not to come out for voting. We do not mean you any harm.
The government is tricking all of us. The blood spilled in Budgam on Sunday is still hot. The area should have been permitted to rest. They deferred polls in south Kashmir but not in this area”, they said The candidates also released the letter which they had shot off to the Chief Electoral Officer seeking “implementation of real democracy in ground level”. In the letter the candidates alleged that the decision of re-poll was taken without consulting them. “If Election Commission of India postponed election in Anantnag why they cannot postpone it in Budgam. Even they did not bother to show us the belt /control unit”, the letter reads.
KV Correspondent
