Two PoK Nationals Debarred From Polls In J&K Leads To An Election In December Chill

As mercury continued its free fall in Kashmir, with Srinagar recording the coldest night of the season at minus 3.4 on Monday, the polling for two district development council seats took place in Kupwara and Ganderbal districts, smoothly today.

The re-polling for the two DDC seats was announced after it was found that PoK nationals had contested from these seats two years ago. 

Two PoK nationals Somia Sadaf and Shazia Begum contested from the DDC election in December 2020 from Drugmulla in Kupwara district and Hajin in Banidpora district, from the seats reserved for women.

But hours before the counting of the votes the election authorities took cognizance of the complaints about the disputed nationality of both Somia Sadaf and Shazia Begum and withheld the results.

After a probe, the state Election Commission declared the elections null and void citing wrong information about the place of birth of the PoK-origin candidates.

They had married two former militants and entered Kashmir with their spouses as part of the government's rehabilitation policy for surrendered militants in 2010.

Somiya Sadaf, 44, is from Muzaffarabad, the capital city of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. Currently a resident of Kupwara district, Somiya did her graduation from Lahore in humanities and her masters through distance learning from Moulana Azad University, Hyderabad.

Her husband, Abdul Majid Bhat was 16 years old when he crossed the LoC for arms training in 1990 like hundreds of Kashmiri youth. However, in Muzaffarabad, he pursued education and later completed his graduation from Lahore and did his masters in English from National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad. He married Somiya in Muzaffarabad in 2002.

In June 2010, the couple returned to Kashmir via Kathmandu, under the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah government’s scheme of return and rehabilitation. In 2010, then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announced the rehabilitation policy. According to the policy, former militants could return from four entry points – Poonch-Rawalakot, Uri-Muzaffarabad, Wagah (Punjab) and Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi. However, most of them took the Nepal route to return home under a tacit understanding between the governments of India and Pakistan.

The District Development Council elections in Jammu and Kashmir were the first polls in J&K since the abrogation of special status granted to the erstwhile state under Article 370.

The election in the Drugmulla DDC seat is now a contest between National Conference and the Peoples Conference.

National Conference and Peoples Conference had allied together in the district development council (DDC) polls in 2020 as part of the Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD). However, the PC had parted ways with the amalgam, accusing the parties in the PAGD of fielding proxy candidates on the seats allotted to it as part of the pre-poll pact.

In this election, PC is supporting Shabnam Lone, who had filed nomination papers as a PDP candidate in 2020.

The PDP distanced itself from Lone after the State Election commissioner announced the schedule for re-poll on November 16, 2022. The party wrote to the J&K election commissioner to withdraw the “inkpot and pen” symbol allotted to Lone.

The Peoples Conference also approached the authorities to change her symbol. However, the authorities conveyed to the parties that the date for withdrawal of nominations had closed nearly two years ago on November 23, 2020, and nothing can be done regarding party symbols. 

In the polls, PC was seeking votes for “inkpot and pen” which is the official symbol of the PDP.

In the polls, National Conference campaigned for advocate Aminah, who had filed nomination papers as an independent candidate in 2020. Apni Party, Congress BJP candidates are also contesting polls in the seat.