After the Kashmiri Pandits threatened to boycott the Lok Sabha polls in protest against the cumbersome procedure for them to cast their votes,National Conference (NC) asked the Election Commission to ease the formalities for them to make them exercise their franchise. National Conference also opposed the cumbersome procedure which the Kashmiri Pandits will have to go through in casting their vote by filling up a mandatory M-form. Opposition by the party has come only two days after some of the Pandit organisations including Panun Kashmir have given a boycott call against the mandatory filling up of M-form by the migrants to cast the vote. Senior NC leader and MLC,Vijay Bakya,said,We opposed the filling of the M-form by the migrants and have taken up the issue also with Election Commission. The M-form is only a hassle that deters the migrants from casting the ballot. They have to get this form signed from a gazetted officer and this has been made mandatory even as there are other documents on the basis of which migrants can cast the vote.'' The opposition came at a meeting with the migrants which was chaired by NC President,Farooq Abdullah,at the party headquarters on Monday. The meeting was the first ever pre-poll exercise for the three parliamentary seats of Kashmir region started by the NC. Nearly four hundred Kashmiri Pandit migrants from different camps and non camps attended the meeting. This will be followed by campaigns in different Kashmiri migrant camps by the party. Abdullah's political advisor,Aslam Goni,said,that the former Chief Minister reiterated his party's resolve to work for the Kashmiri Pandits and even informed the Pandit leadership that NC was for the protection of the shrines of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley for which the party has introduced a bill in the recent assembly. The NC was trying to woo the Pandits as the PDP had little support among them. A section of Kashmiri Pandit leader's view of PDPs 'soft separatism' as being both,anti-national and anti-migrant. This even as former Chief Minister and PDP patron,Mufti Mohammad Sayeed,was for the return of Kashmiri Pandits back to the Valley and start the construction of the temporary quarters for them for the purpose in Kashmir Valley. Spokesman of the Jammu and Kashmir National United Front,a migrant body,Vijay Chiken,said,PDP has done nothing good for the migrants. In PDP rule we only lost and got nothing. PDP has been only been appeasing the muslim vote bank. On three of the Lok Sabha seats from Kashmir Valley the migrant vote was nearly 75,000. However Chiken,said,many of the migrant voters couldn't register due to the cumbersome procedure set by the Election Commission. The migrant voters are being asked to fill in the M-form which is only a time consuming process. In fact in its protest we have decided not to field any of our candidates from the three parliamentary seats of Kashmir Valley.
