Smiles, hope & will for change — inside Srinagar polling booths that saw highest turnout in decades

Srinagar/Tral/Pulwama: For 55-year-old Imtiaz Ahmed, this was his first visit to a polling booth. Though curious to see what a voting machine looks like, he was unsure of what to do once he got inside the polling station.

“Are there multiple buttons? What if I get confused? How to be sure that the vote goes to the right party?” he asked his friend, who stood beside him, equally clueless.

Ahmed was among the tens of thousands of voters in Srinagar who came out to cast their vote in the fourth phase of the ongoing general election — the first since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Their motivation: “necessity of political representation for Kashmir”.

“There is so much unemployment and everything is so expensive. We have no ration, no electricity and no one to hear us out. It is important for us to have a leader, who is a local, and understands our problems which is why we have come out to vote for the first time. We all are first time voters,” he told ThePrint.

Queuing outside the polling booth, Ahmed acknowledged that the absence of boycott calls and hartals further enabled him and his friends to step out to vote.

Srinagar recorded a voter turnout of approximately 38 percent till 11.45 pm, compared to 14.43 percent in 2019. It was also the highest since 1996 when Srinagar witnessed a voter turnout of 40.8 percent.

Remarkably, regions in the Srinagar parliamentary constituency once plagued by militancy including Shopian, Teal, and Pulwama, saw voters turning out in large numbers, at 45 percent, 37.52 percent, and 39.25 percent, respectively. This was a steep rise from 2019, when Pulwana and Shopian recorded a turnout of merely 2.15 and 3 percent.

ThePrint’s National Photo Editor Praveen Jain captures the mood of voters — most of whom voted for the first time — at polling booths in Srinagar, Shopian, Tral, and Pulwama.

Voters showing inked fingers at downtown Kashmir | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A woman voter showing her inked finger in Pulwama | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Another voter showing his inked finger in Pulwama | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Two women voters socialising while standing in queue | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A woman voter with her child at a polling booth | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A policeman guiding an elderly man at a polling booth in Pulwama | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Long queues of voters waiting to exercise their right to vote | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Security personnel at a polling station | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Women standing in queue to vote | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A voter holding his voting receipt | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Polling officer giving out voting receipts | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Women voters feeding their children in an open area near a polling booth | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A woman voter showing her inked finger | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A CRPF commando keeping an eye on the queue | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Security arrangements in Pulwama to ensure peaceful polling | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Children pose for the camera outside a polling station in Pulwama | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Voters queue up to cast their vote in Zampathri, Shopian | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Voters looking for their names in the voters’ list | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Young voters waiting in line to exercise their right to vote | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Voters showing receipt in Shopian district | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A CRPF jawan managing the queue in Shopian | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Girls waiting for their parents outside a polling booth in Tral, village of deceased Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Elderly voters in Tral reading the the voter guidelines | Praveen Jain | ThePrint