Mir Farhat
PULWAMA, Dec 9: Rajpora constituency which voted today saw a battle of ballot outrighlty between PDP’s Haseeb Drabu and NC’s Mohiddin Mir.
There was much jostle outside the polling stations in Murran and Rajpora, the native villages of Drabu and Mir respectively, yet voters in rest of the constituency looked nimble and without much enthusiasm.
While the voters are scattered across the constituency, the battle seemed visible in these two villages. At the end of polling, Rajpora cast a total of 42,650 (47.06%) votes.
In Rajpora, people outside polling booths talked much about Drabu’s family background and his wealth. An elderly man said that though he did not come to his hometown in the last 30 years but people hope that Drabu will develop this area after he becomes a minister in the next Government.
In Rajpora, of the 2,781 votes 2,205 were polled till voting closed.
A few kilometers down in Bellow village, voters both men and women, queued up in long lines at the polling station. And the anxious polling staff was thinking of extending the voting by an hour as the electronic voting machine was switched on an hour late due to technical snag.
Out of 2,211 registered voters, 11,12 were cast before half an hour of scheduled closing of the exercise.
Down the road in Muran, the scene at the polling booths was festive as the poling staff had called it a day.Young and old men, and some young women were already celebrating Mir’s win as MLA.
“We know Mir Sahib will make it this time as the whole area fully voted for him today. He will be our next minister,” said Khursheed Ahmad, a youth who voted for Mir.
Ahmad said the constituency needs an MLA who can fairly represent them and develop the area with modern facilities.
Muran, Rajpora, Rohmoo, Bellow are the big villages which have large number of registered voters. Gazi Khursheed said the fate of the elections in the segment will be decided by these villages.
Since other candidates like sitting MLA Syed Bashir, who is contesting as independent after PDP replaced him with Drabu, and NC’s former distict president Ghulam Nabi Niloora, too are in the fray. But their chances of making it a day look bleak as voters mostly said that it is for the big parties and big candidates they have turned out to vote.
“We want to see our MLA as a minister, not merely an MLA. So we are voting for the candidate of a big and old party,” said a group of youth in Bellow village.
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