Srinagar: Voting began on Monday on a dull note in penultimate leg of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency amidst tight security measures, officials said.
The residents in most parts of the district have stayed indoors so far. There were only a few votes cast in Kulgam, Noorabad, Home Shalibugh and Devsar—the assembly segments, constituting the Kulgam district. While voting is underway in Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian districts are going to polls on May 6 while Anantnag went to polls on April 23, recording 13.6 per cent turnout.
The ECI has set up 433 polling stations across the district and 90 per cent of them fall in hyper-sensitive category while remaining ten per cent have been declared sensitive.
Over 3.45 lakh electors are entitled to vote in the Kulgam district of them include 179,607 males, 164,604 females, 1262 service electors (1254 male and eight female) and 13 transgender.
There are 18 candidates in the fray that include Hasnain Masoodi of National Conference, Sofi Yousuf of Bhartiya Janta Party, Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Indian National Congress, Mehbooba Mufti of Jammu Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, Nisar Ahmad Wani of Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party, Choudhary Zaffar Ali of Jammu Kashmir People’s Conference, Sanjay Kumar Dhar of Manav Adhikar Party, Surinder Singh of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and Imtiyaz Ahmad Rather, Ridwana Sanam, Riyaz Ahmad Bhat, Zubair Masoodi, Shams Khwaja, Ali Muhammad Wani, Gh Muhammad Wani, Kyasir Ahmed Sheikh, Manzoor Ahmad Khan and Mirza Sajad Hussain Beigh, all independents.
An official spokesman said that Kulgam Assembly segment has the highest number of 98,298 voters (51,051 males, 46,818 females, 455 service voters and 4 transgender voters) while as Noorabad has the lowest 77,171 electors, including 40,093 males, 36,886 females, 188 service voters and 4 transgender voters.
Assembly segment of Devsar has 91288 voters (47467 males, 43324 females, 492 service voters and five transgender voters), and HS Bugh segment has 78669 voters (40996 males, 37576 females and 127 service voters).
The Anantnag district of the Lok Sabha constituency went to polls in the third phase on April 23 recording 13.6 per cent polling.
The voting timing has been fixed from 7 am to 4 pm in the district. Pulwama and Shopian districts are going to polls on May 6.
