Srinagar: The ongoing trend of very low voters coming out to votes in the local body elections in Kashmir valley continued today too with only 1.3 percent of the 1.62 lakh electorate turned out to exercise their right to vote in the first three hours of the elections that began at around 6 am.

There are a total of 20 wards under the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, where the voting process is underway, witnessed only 0.8 percent of the 1.53 lakh voters turning up, officials said.

As for the Anantnag district of the northernmost state, a meagre 100 votes were casts out of the 5,469 vote numbers in the first three hours, officials said.

But somewhat opposite to the trend in the state, there was heavy polling reported from the Uri municipal committee of Baramulla district where a total of 908 of the total 3,552 voters have already cast their votes.

The total polling percentage for the first three hours was about 25.6 percent. There are a total of 365 candidates in the competition to win 96 wards for eight urban local bodies for the third phase and that comprises of a total electorate of 1,93,990 people.

According to the officials involved in the polling process, massive security arrangement have been put in place and further said that additional staff has been deployed at polling stations that are experiencing large number of voters.

The total electorate is of about 17 lakh for the 79 municipal bodies for the municipal elections and the elections for these bodies are being held in a total of four phases. The last phase is about take place on Tuesday.

There are a total of 3,372 nominations that were filed for the 1145 wards.

The elections in the state saw boycotting by National Conference, CPI(M) and Peoples Democratic Party. The state government has declared holiday on the election day for the municipal areas.

The elections in the state are being held in tight security with fear from terrorist organisations making any attempt to disrupt the process. The due judgement over the Article 35A issue is also being cited the reason for low turnout to vote as many organisations have already said that time that they would not take part in the coming Assembly elections. The reason they cite is that the Article 35A is being made an instrument to devoid them the rights they deserve. Hence this might be one of the reasons for low voter turnout.

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