Enthusiastic voters have high expectations from contestants
Excelsior Correspondent
AKHNOOR, Oct 8: There seems to be a direct fight between Bharatiya Janta Party and Congress in three Municipal Committees of Akhnoor belt of Jammu district as other political parties and independent candidates are largely missing.
This came to the fore during the visit to many polling stations established for elections to the wards of Akhnoor, Khour and Jourian Municipal Committees by this correspondent today. In most of the wards, there was contest between two major national political parties BJP and Congress as neither other political parties nor independents had joined the election fray unlike contest for Jammu Municipal Corporation and other Municipal Committees, which went to polling in Phase-I today where large number of independent candidates are contesting elections.
“Only major political parties can do justice with us and come up to our expectations in terms of meeting our area specific development needs”, a number of voters told EXCELSIOR, adding “if the candidates of these parties don’t come up to our expectations after winning the polls we can complain against them before the senior leaders of their respective parties but in case of independent candidates this remedy is not available and even if independents were contesting elections we would not have preferred them”.
Since early morning, a large number of enthusiastic voters were seen thronging the polling stations to exercise their democratic right and at many polling stations the polling process was largely over by afternoon. Thereafter, only few voters were seen turning up to cast votes.
A mixed trend of voting was witnessed in majority of the wards of these Municipal Committees which established that there was close contest between the candidates. Some said that they voted for BJP as Modi led Central Government has done a lot for poor and rural people while some said BJP has failed in Centre as well in State and therefore they have voted for Congress.
Rakesh Kumar of Bazzigar Basti in Ward No 12 of Akhnoor said that all their family members have voted for BJP as what Congress could not do in 50 years for the common man, BJP has done in last five years. “Various schemes for urban poor have been launched by the Modi led Central Government”, he added.
Another voter namely Banarsi Lal (50) after casting his vote in Ward No 7 said, “I have voted with the expectations that our local issues like menace of stray animals are resolved”. He, however declined to tell as to which party or candidate he voted for.
Pawan Sharma, a 27-year-old young man of Ward No 7, Jourian said that he has voted for Congress candidate, as the BJP candidate in their ward is an outsider, who does not know problems of their ward.
The enthusiasm of casting vote was also not less in old age people as an 85-year-old woman namely Kaushalaya who could not walk, came to cast her vote in Ward No 3 of Jourian in a wheel chair. “My sons and grandsons were saying don’t go for voting as you cannot walk but as I never missed voting how I can miss this time, so I request them to take me to polling booth”, the woman said.
In Ward No 1 of Khour, Ramesh Sharma, a shopkeeper said that most of the people in Ward No 1 and Ward No 2 are PoK refugees and all of them are voting for BJP as they are happy after getting Rs 5.5 lakh rupees as one time relief from the Modi led Central Government, which previous Governments could not provide them.
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