The Election Commission was left with little option but to postpone the April 12 byelection to the Anantnag parliamentary constituency to May 25 with the law and order situation not being found conducive to holding it now. Going by the killing of eight civilians and injuries to more than 170 in the Srinagar Lok Sabha by-election, and the torching of schools in Anantnag which were chosen as polling centres, it is wise that the commission chose to defer the polls. There is indeed no denying that with the voting in Srinagar being an abysmal 7 per cent—the lowest ever—all is not well in the valley and there was little point in forcing a poll down the throat of people who are clearly feeling too insecure to go to the polling booths in the wake of calls by militants and their supporters to boycott the polls. While it is true that it is much easier to disrupt a byelection or two than full-fledged parliamentary or assembly polls, the State government in unison with the Centre must ensure that they do not cut a sorry figure when the postponed poll is held in Anantnag.
The fact of the matter is that the security forces were unprepared for the scale of violence, and failed to ensure conditions for free, unrestricted polling in Srinagar. For voters, the political stakes were low and the physical risks high which made the elaborate exercise a farce that was robbed of all political legitimacy. After the higher voter participation in recent years in the Valley, the way the Srinagar by-election unfolded pointed to a dramatic slide in the political situation which should cause deep concern.
The killing of Burhan Wani, a ‘commander’ of the Hizbul Mujahideen, by security forces in July last year set off a new cycle of violence in Kashmir that does not seem to have
ended to this day. That the movement is drawing sustenance from across the border is no secret, but the difficulty is that we are unable to counter it. The credibility of the Mehbooba Mufti government has indeed hit a new low with its failure
to contain the violence. When the people vacillate on whether they should come out to vote in Anantnag on May 25, it
would be no mean task convincing them that staying at
home might be the better option to facing the stones of protesters and the guns of security forces. Indeed, the cycle
of violence has to be broken and the credibility of the administration has to be re-established at all costs. Kashmir cannot go on in its present state.
