Large number of Kash Pandits deleted from voters rolls: BJP

BJP today said from over one lakh electorate in 1989 the migrant Kashmiri Pandit strength had come down to 15,000 in the last assembly elections in Kashmir and alleged that a large number of community members names were deleted from the rolls in the valley.     

"The Kashmiri Pandit voters who numbered over 1,20,000 before their exodus in 1989, have come down to just about 72,000. But in the assembly elections of 2008, only about 35,000 migrants filled up the required forms for their voting and about 15,000 of them could cast their votes," BJP legislative party leader C L Gupta told reporters here.      

The BJP leader alleged that many of the names of the minority voters have been deleted from the voter lists of Kashmir or has mistakes.      

In 1947, the minorities of Kashmir, pandit and others in the valley were about fourteen per cent but today their population has come down less than one per cent, he added.     

Gupta questioned the fact that the number of migrant voters has come down to 70,000 or less even when the government has registered the number of migrant families  over 50,000 and as a family generally has five members therefore the numbers must be much higher.