JOIN USRe-poll in 38 booths in Srinagar LS seat
A day after deferring byelection to the Anantnag constituency, Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday announced re-election in 38 polling stations in the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat that went to the polls on April 9 amid large scale violence.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shantmanu said the stations where re-polling will be held on April 13 are in the district of Budgam, where most of the violent clashes were reported.
The counting for the Srinagar parliamentary constituency will be done on April 15, as per schedule. Eight people died on Sunday in the districts of Budgam and Ganderbal — both are in the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency — in the firing by security forces in the clashes between them and stone pelters.
The polling had to be stopped at dozens of booths. The large scale violence also prompted the poll panel to defer the byelection to the Anantnag constituency from April 12 to May 25.
The 7.14% voter turnout on Sunday for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat was the worst in nearly 30 years of the electoral history of Jammu and Kashmir.
Broadband internet services resumed after two days in Kashmir on Tuesday, even as the Valley remained shut in response to a call for a strike by separatists over Sunday’s killings.
However, mobile internet services were yet to be restored. The internet services had been snapped at midnight on April 8 as a “preemptive measure” to stop rumour-mongering and mobilisation by separatists to disrupt the bypoll.
The separatists also withdrew the strike call for Wednesday in view of the postponement of the Anantnag constituency bypoll.
Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik had earlier called for a shutdown in areas of south Kashmir, where the April 12 bypoll would have taken place.