Voting picks up slightly in Kulgam, 6.67% recorded up to 1 PM

Voting picked up with an overall polling percentage of 6.67 being reported from Kulgam district, one of the four districts in Anantnag Lok Sabha parliamentary elections, in the first six hours on Monday. Polling is underway in Kulgam, Noorabad, Homeshalibugh and Devsar assembly segments in the second of the 3-phased election in the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat. Giving breakup of the polling, an official of the election commission said Noorabad witnessed 14.49% Kulgam 0.89%, Homshalibug 0.69% and Devsar 11.42% up to 1300 hours. The polling which started at 7 a.m. ends at 1600 hours. The ECI has set up 433 polling stations across the district and 90 percent of them fall in the hyper-sensitive category while remaining ten per cent have been declared sensitive. Over 3.45 lakh electors are entitled to vote in the Kulgam district of them include 179,607 males, 164,604 females, 1262 service electors (1254 male and eight female) and 13 transgender. There are 18 candidates in the fray that include Hasnain Masoodi of National Conference, Sofi Yousuf of Bhartiya Janta Party, Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Indian National Congress, Mehbooba Mufti of Jammu Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, Nisar Ahmad Wani of Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party, Choudhary Zaffar Ali of Jammu Kashmir People’s Conference, Sanjay Kumar Dhar of Manav Adhikar Party, Surinder Singh of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and Imtiyaz Ahmad Rather, Ridwana Sanam, Riyaz Ahmad Bhat, Zubair Masoodi, Shams Khwaja, Ali Muhammad Wani, Gh Muhammad Wani, Kyasir Ahmed Sheikh, Manzoor Ahmad Khan and Mirza Sajad Hussain Beigh, all independents. The Kulgam Assembly segment has the highest number of 98,298 voters (51,051 males, 46,818 females, 455 service voters and 4 transgender voters) while as Noorabad has the lowest 77,171 electors, including 40,093 males, 36,886 females, 188 service voters and 4 transgender voters. Assembly segment of Devsar has 91288 voters (47467 males, 43324 females, 492 service voters and five transgender voters), and HS Bugh segment has 78669 voters (40996 males, 37576 females and 127 service voters). The Anantnag district of the Lok Sabha constituency went to polls in the third phase on April 23 recording 13.6 per cent polling. The Pulwama and Shopian districts are going to polls on May 6.