By Ovais Gull
Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday said that the polling stations for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Jammu and Kashmir are being clubbed here, thus simultaneously will hit affect the participation of people who can’t afford to walk kilometers to cast their ballots.
Addressing a press conference here, PDP Vice President Abdul Rehman Veeri said that it has come to the fore that the government is mulling to mulling to club at least 10-15 polling stations at many places, therefore the people will have to face hardships to cast their ballots by forcing to walk three-four kilometers to vote.
“In rural areas, most of the people don’t have their own transport and can’t walk kilometers to cast their ballots,” he said, adding that clubbing of the polling stations in such a way will result in less participation of people in LS polls.
He said the party demand all those polling station that are being clubbed should be set up at previous locations and also those polling stations that are far from the villagers should be set up nearer to them so that they will face no hardship to cast their ballots.
Veeri said clubbing of polling stations here is not in the interests of people and will affect participation of voters in the elections by almost 100 percent.
Furthermore, PDP Vice President said that the government withdrew the security of political leaders and workers and keeping in view of elections they have to speed up their activities, “but how can they go ahead with their political activities when they will remain under constant threat keeping in view of the security scenario of the state especially Kashmir.”
He said such a move will hamper the participation of people in the elections, therefore, “we demand that all those persons whose security has been withdrawn should be given protection once again so that they can start their political activities ahead of the elections in a peaceful manner.”
