Nearly a monthlong district development polls, held in eight phases, ended today in Jammu and Kashmir with the Election Commission recording a total voting percentage 51.
State Election Commissioner (SEC) K.K. Sharma said the eighth phase recorded 51 per cent voting while no law-and-order incident was reported anywhere in J&K.
Sharma said Jammu division recorded an average voter turnout of 72.71 per cent with Poonch district recording the highest percentage of 83.58 per cent followed by Reasi district with 81.92 per cent and Rajouri with 77.31 per cent.
Kashmir Valley recorded 29.91 per cent average voter turnout with Kupwara district recording the highest polling at 63.80 per cent followed by Bandipora with 56.56 per cent and Baramulla district recorded 44.60 per cent polling, he added.
South Kashmir districts continue witnessed low percentage with Anantnag 8.66 per cent, Kulgam 11.20 per cent, Pulwama 8.50 per cent and Shopian 8.58 per cent.
On the final phase in Bijbehara block of south Kashmir, 5,000 voters turned up out of 50,000. In several polling booths, zero polling was recorded.
The DDC 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 results will be declared on December 22. There were 280 DDC constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir.
The first phase of the DDC polls was held on November 28 and with a turnout of 51.76 per cent. The second phase on December 1 recorded 48.62 per cent turnout. The third phase saw 50.53 per cent voter turnout with Kashmir recording an average turnout of 31.61 per cent and Jammu recording an average turnout of 68.88 per cent. In the fourth phase on December 7, the turnout was 50.08 per cent. In the fifth phase of polling, Kashmir recorded 33.57 per cent polling, Jammu registered 66 per cent polling, taking the overall turnout in J&K to 51.20 per cent.
The sixth phase of the DDC elections on Sunday recorded 51.5 per cent polling in Jammu and Kashmir. There was a near total boycott in the south Kashmir districts of Shopian and Pulwama and moderate polling in other parts of the Valley that pushed up the voter turnout in Kashmir to 32.5 per cent.
In the seventh phase of the DDC polls on Wednesday, Jammu and Kashmir reported 57.22 per cent voting, with 39.52 per cent voting in Kashmir and 71.93 per cent in Jammu. The highest polling in Kashmir was recorded in Bandipora (70.47 per cent) and lowest was recorded in Shopian (6.55 per cent).
On October 17, the Centre amended the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayati Raj Act, 1989, for holding direct elections to the DDCs. Under the new rules, each district has been divided into 14 territorial constituencies by the respective deputy commissioners for electing their representatives, who will then among themselves elect the chairman and vice-chairman of these councils.
Since 2018 when the PDP-BJP government fell, Jammu and Kashmir has been under governor’s rule.
