Do away with complex forms for Pandit voters: BJP

The state unit of the BJP is making renewed efforts to end the mandatory filing of M-forms by the displaced Kashmiri Pandit voters ahead of every Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in J&K.
Senior party leaders are likely to approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) to do away with the filing of forms, which has deprived thousands of Pandits of their voting rights due to the cumbersome process.
Sources said the BJP was aggressively pursuing the issue with an eye on expanding workers’ base in the Valley while focusing on consolidating the displaced Hindus who live in the camps of Jammu.
Close to 1 lakh Pandit voters are registered with the Chief Electoral Officer, J&K. For over two decades, the community has been demanding streamlining of the electoral process as they cast votes for their constituencies in the Valley at Jammu, where special polling booths are set up by the ECI.
Although insignificant for any party or candidate to win a seat in the Valley, their participation increases the voter percentage.
“There is a need to simplify the voting norms for the Kashmiri migrants. Filing M-form is a tedious process which deprives the community of its democratic right as they live away from their homeland. A sustained campaign by the ECI is needed to ensure 100 per cent registration of eligible voters,” said BJP MLC Girdari Lal Raina.
Raina recently met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba. The MLC also demanded that the electoral rolls be made available to the community in English or Devanagari.
The BJP has been taking up this issue for long. In 2017, Union Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh and Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had met the ECI officials and demanded simplification of process for the migrantsto ensure their greater participation in the elections, fallen significantly since their exodus from the Valley in 1989-90.
“Many forms don’t reach the ECI office from the Relief Organisation, where the forms are filled. In the past, many voters could not cast their vote because their forms were rejected,” said SL Pandita, a social worker.
As per data, there are a total of 92,103 migrant electors from the Valley. The Srinagar parliamentary constituency consists of Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam segments comprising 38,278 Pandit voters. The Anantnag segment comprises volatile districts of Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag and Kulgam segments having 33,957 electors belonging to the minority community.