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Riyaz Bhat
Shopian, May 13 : For Noor Mohammad Poswal—a 60-year-old Schedule tribal voter in south Kashmir’s Shopian district, ‘casting a vote in parliamentary elections 2024 was more important’ for which he didn’t budge from the queue for more than five hours.
Poswal says that he and his three sons were eligible to cast their votes. “We travelled more than 12 Kilometers from Shalidar terrains to plains of Zraken village of Shopian district to cast our votes.”
Not only the Poswal family—the residents of Shalidar area told the news agency that the whole village encompasses Gujjar-Bakarwal community and have travelled all the way to cast their vote.
Noor Mohammad Poswal said that he had to wait for more than five hours in a queue to cast his vote. “In this month, we usually start grazing our cattle, horses and sheep in the pastures. However, I believe that casting a vote for this election was more important than grazing my cattle.”
Another voter, Mohammad Shareef Tedwa of Shalidar terrains said that the villagers have never let the vote go to waste but the concerned authorities ‘never tried to ease their living standard in any ways.’
“Before the elections, we were told that the authorities will set-up polling booths near the Shalidar village. But, unfortunately, the senior citizens of our tribe were forced to walk miles to cast their vote,” Tedwa said.
He said, “In this area, there are two villages that include Shalidar and Zarakan. Whole Shalidar area is a Gujjar-Bakarwal region and falls under Schedule tribe category. The positive part of it is that the whole village comes to the plain in the Zarakan area to cast their vote.”
Likewise, another resident of Shalidar area, Baba Gorsi said that the villagers cast vote only for the betterment purposes. “So far we haven’t seen many developments for the Shalidar villagers and the Gujjar-Bakarwal community but this time we are very optimistic for the change.”
Presiding officer of Zraken Shopian said that there are 1050 votes in the segment and till 2Pm more than 300 votes were recorded
