No vote cast in 90 booths in Srinagar Lok Sabha seat

SRINAGAR: As many as 90 polling booths, mostly in downtown city, saw no voting in Thursday's elections to the Srinagar Parliamentary seat, sources said.


The Srinagar constituency comprising eight assembly segments recorded zero turnout in as many as 50 polling booths.

The majority of these booths were located in Eidgah, Khanyar, Habba Kadal and Batmaloo, sources said.

Barring the Sonawar assembly segment, where former chief ministers

Farooq Abdullah

and Omar cast their votes, all other seven assembly seats recorded a single digit voting percentage with Eidgah at 3.3 per cent by the end of the polling.

Sonawar recorded 12 per cent polling.

In the neighbouring Ganderbal district, which is a part of the Srinagar parliamentary seat, as many as 27 polling booths recorded no votes at the end of the polling.

The same was the case with 13 booths of

Budgam

, which witnessed large scale violence in 2017 by-elections to the

Lok Sabha

seat.

In Budgam area, Chadoora saw the lowest turnout at 9.2 per cent among the five assembly segments, while Chrar-e-Sharief recorded the highest at 31.1 per cent.

The Srinagar constituency has 12,95,304 registered voters and 1,716 polling stations.

The National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah, who is the sitting MP from this constituency, is seeking reelection.

The PDP has fielded Aga Syed Mohsin, while Khalid Jahangir from the BJP and Peoples Conference's Irfan Ansari are also in the fray.

The Congress, which is an ally of NC, has stayed away from contesting Srinagar.