Several internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu on Monday had to return home without casting their votes for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat after finding their names missing from the electoral roll.

Notably, the Election Commission had set up polling booths for the Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi, but not everyone was able to exercise their right to franchise.

Sanjay Ganjoo, a voter at Jagti Township for the migrants, was visibly perturbed as his and his family members’ names were missing from the electoral roll.

“We came here this morning to cast our votes. We have also brought our EPIC (elector’s photo identity card) but our names were not found. We have been barred from exercising our right to vote,” he said.

Sunil Tickoo, another voter, questioned, “If the EPIC has no relevance then why issue it to the voters”.

A woman voter Anjali Raina also expressed regrets over the recurrent malady, saying “Every election, Kashmiri Pandits, who have already been hounded out of their homes, face this problem. The government, on one hand, provided us three days paid leave to cast our votes and on the other, has not done enough to ensure that our names are reflected in electoral rolls.”

“We came here with voter ID cards but found that our names are not in the electoral rolls. Had the Election Commission been serious, the instructions should have gone in advance to the officials to allow us vote on the basis of voter ID card,” she added.

She claimed that several migrant voters returned home without casting their votes.

Ashok Dhar, another voter, said, “This happens every election. It seems there are certain vested interests in the administration, who don’t want Kashmiri Pandits to cast their votes. I urge chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar and the lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha to take strict cognizance of the matter.”

A total of 26 polling stations were set up for the migrants — 21 in Jammu, four in Delhi and one in Udhampur.

ARO blames old data, non-filing of claims

Assistant electoral returning officer (AERO), migrants, Dr Riaz Ahmed admitted that some Pandit voters could not cast their votes, attributing the problem to old data used to prepare electoral rolls and non-filing of claims by the migrant voters to an Election Commission notification.

Following persistent demand by the Pandits to do away with ‘M’ Form, the Election Commission had cancelled it for the Kashmiri Pandit migrants staying in Jammu and Udhampur districts.

The commission had said that they would now be “mapped” with special polling stations to be set up in the zones that they were residing presently.

The ‘M’ Form was introduced during the 1996 Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections to enable Pandit migrants to vote in their constituencies in Kashmir while living in exile. The form is filled by the heads of Kashmiri Pandit migrant families staying at different places in Jammu and elsewhere in the country.

The form having antecedents of the Pandit families with their photos had to be signed by the relief commissioner (migrants).