Record voter turnout in hotly contested Kashmir seat

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

Turnout reached a record 54.57% in a parliamentary constituency in Indian-administered Kashmir on Monday, marking the highest rate over the past 34 years of insurgency in the region.

The northern Baramulla seat is the most hotly contested of five constituencies in the Muslim-majority region, where a major election is underway for the first time since its political autonomy was scrapped by New Delhi in 2019.

Regional political parties have pitched this election as a referendum on the decision by the Indian government.

In the electoral fray are former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of National Conference, the party which has ruled the region the most since India's independence in 1947.

Abdullah faces a tough challenge from Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as engineer Rashid, a former lawmaker of the now-dissolved regional assembly.

Rashid has been in jail since 2019 and was one of the most vocal critics of India's policies in Kashmir, especially the alleged human rights abuses during uprisings in 2010 and 2016. He has been charged in a "terror funding" case.

His son, campaigning for his father, had drawn large crowds in the region where elections were once a muted affair due to boycott calls by pro-freedom parties. Such calls had led to low turnout in past years, but Monday's turnout exceeded the laste election's 34.57%, held months before the abrogation of the autonomy in August 2019. It alsp breached the 1996 turnout of 46.65%.

Another challenger is Sajad Lone, son of noted pro-freedom leader Abdul Gani Lone, assassinated in 2002, who will be banking on his father's loyal cadre of supporters.

Voting has been held for the Jammu and Udhampur seats in Jammu province and the prestigious Srinagar constituency in the first of India's multi-phase parlaimentary elections.

On May 25, elections will be held for the southern Anantnag-Rajouri seat.

The turnout was even higher at 61% in Ladakh, which was part of the Jammu and Kashmir state before 2019 but was carved into a separate federally ruled territory.