J&K Assembly Polls: Once militancy hotbeds, Baramulla, Sopore in north Kashmir record highest voter turnout in 30 years

The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections concluded on Tuesday with the third and final phase of voting recording an estimated voter turnout of 65.58 per cent till 7 pm, the Election Commission of India said.

As many as 40 seats across seven districts of the erstwhile state voted in the final phase today. The poll panel called the exercise ‘historic’ with no repolls so far and overall voting beating Lok Sabha elections 2024 numbers.

The three border districts of Kashmir – Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara – registered a voter turnout of about 60 per cent with traditional boycott bastions of Sopore and Baramulla towns in north Kashmir recording the highest turnout in an election in the last thirty years, according to a report by news agency PTI.

The turnout in the 16 Assembly seats of these three districts was nearly 5 per cent less than what was recorded in the 2014 Assembly polls.

According to the election commission data, Sopore town, which was once a hotbed of separatism and militancy, witnessed, on Tuesday, a voter turnout of 41.44 per cent – 11 per cent more than the 2014 Assembly polls.

In the Baramulla seat, nearly 48 per cent of voters exercised their franchise. The turnout in this election was 8 per cent more than in 2014. The Pattan Assembly segment also registered a higher voter turnout compared to 2014 as nearly 61 per cent electorate cast their votes.

One of the key factors attributed to the higher voter turnout in Sopore was the presence of Aijaz Guru, the brother of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, as a contestant, the PTI report said.

In Baramulla, too, Jamaat-e-Islami-backed independent candidate Abdul Rehman Shalla entering the fray seems to have had a positive effect on the voter turnout.

Jammu and Kashmir is holding its first assembly elections in ten years. This is also the first assembly election in the UT after the abrogation of special status under Article 370 in August 2019.

Dip in turnout

However, some of the constituencies which had seen high voter turnout in the Assembly elections 10 years ago, saw a drop in percentage.

Among the areas that saw a substantial dip were Lok Sabha member Sheikh Abdul Rashid's native Langate segment and Kupwara and Handwara segments, the two seats where People's Conference president Sajad Lone is contesting.

Border constituencies of Uri and Karnah also saw more than a 10 per cent dip in the turnout. While 82.85 per cent of voters had cast their votes in Uri in 2014, the number fell to 64.81 per cent this time.

Sonawari segment in Bandipora district also saw a dip of around 15 per cent -- from 80.77 per cent in 2014 to 65.56 per cent this time.

While there were 15 Assembly segments in the three districts which went to polls on Tuesday, one seat was added to it after the delimitation exercise of 2022. Election officials said the turnout figures could go slightly up as data was still being collected from some of the remote polling stations.

The first phase of voting was held on September 18 and the second phase on September 25. A voter turn out of 61 per cent was recorded in the first phase while the approximate voter turnout was 57.3 per cent in the second phase of voting, according to poll panel data.

The votes will be counted on October 8.

(With PTI inputs)