Srinagar, Aug 29: The All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) has apprehended that many of the young Sikh voters may have been excluded from the voter list in Kashmir Valley as the census carried out in 2011 was not done in an organized manner. The Committee has also expressed concern over the scattering of Sikh voters saying that the sole aim of this exercise was to en-sure that Sikhs did not put up a united front.
These concerns were raised by a delegation of APSCC during their meeting with the officials of the Chief Electoral Officer, Jammu & Kashmir. The delega-tion was led by APSCC Chairman, Jagmohan Singh Raina. The committee had planned to raise these issues with the team of Election Commission of India that visited Jammu & Kashmir some weeks back. As the committee could not meet the Election Commission of India due to the paucity of time of the later the poll body had directed Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu & Kashmir to get in touch with them and listen to their point of view.
Following this a delegation of APSCC met the higher-ups of Chief Electoral of-fice here today.
In a statement APSCC Chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina said that the commit-tee had proposed to the government to take a team of the Sikh community while carrying out the census in Kashmir Valley in 2011. He said that since ma-jority of the Sikh families had left villages and settled in city areas like Mehjoor Nagar, Aloochi Bagh, Jawahar Nagar and others it was necessary that commu-nity members were to be taken along while the census was carried out.
“We apprehend that many of the young Sikh voters may not vote in the com-ing assembly elections since their names might be missing in the voter list. This would lead to disenfranchise of the community and the consequences will be not less than a disaster,” said Raina.
The APSCC Chairman said that delimitation of the assembly constituencies has been done in such a manner that the voters of a particular assembly seg-ment have been divided into two or three assembly segments. He said that Sikhs are no exception in this regard and as such community members have been divided and there is no unity.
“The government has accommodated each and every section of the society when it comes to giving the reservation but Sikhs have been left out. There is clear discrimination of the community as a whole and it does not augur well for the country’s democracy,” said Raina.
The APSCC Chairman said that the matters could have been resolved had the Election Commission of India taken some time out and met the committee members. He said that the other issues pertaining to the community have been put to the backburner and there is no accountability.
