Pandit migrants living in Delhi for nearly 20 years now are voting long distance to keep their stake in Jammu and Kashmir alive.

At least 40 people have voted so far in the last five phases through the postal ballot, and 59 others have already filled their Migrant forms (M-forms) to cast their votes on Wednesday, when South Srinagar district goes to the polls in the sixth phase.

Srinagar district has the highest number of Pandit votes at 23,796, most of who migrated to different parts of the country after violence broke out in the Valley in the 1990s.

“We are Kashmiris before Pandits. I am very happy that the people of Kashmir have come out in large numbers to vote this time, despite threats and boycott calls by the separatists,” Rashneek Kher, a 27-year-old Kashmiri Pandit, said. He migrated with his family from Badgam at the age of 16. Today, he is married and has a three-year-old daughter. He works with a multinational company in Faridabad, as head of logistics department. Kher is registered as a voter in Badgam but says he has never voted. “I will never vote till I am given a chance to vote in the place where I belong,” he said.

Pandit migrants in Delhi feel the entire exercise of voting is futile and the process too cumbersome. A lot of voters blame the tedious and very complicated process of filling up migrant forms for the small number of votes sent. “Not more than 40 people voted in the first five phases. But at least 59 voters have registered to vote tomorrow by filling up the M-forms,” an election officer at the Prithviraj Road polling station said.

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