Daisy Raina becomes first Kashmiri Pandit woman to fight Assembly elections in J-K in 3-decades

Srinagar, Sep 09: A woman Kashmiri Pandit is said to contest in the forthcoming Assembly polls in J&K. This would be the first time in almost thirty-years that a woman from KP community is fighting elections in Kashmir.

Daisy Raina, who worked in a private company in Delhi, and has also served as a sarpanch of Frisal village in south Kashmir's Pulwama is a lone candidate fielded by the Republican Party of India (Athawale), which is an ally of the BJP in the NDA alliance.

Ms Raina will be contesting from the Rajpora Assembly constituency in Pulwama. She says, she "was compelled to contest elections by the youth who want her to be their voice," NDTV reported.

"The youth forced me to contest and asked me to ensure that their voice reaches the J&K Assembly. I was working here as a sarpanch and, on the side, I would meet young people, hear them out and try and understand their problems. Our youth have been suffering despite not being guilty of anything. Young people born in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s have seen only bullets," Ms Raina told NDTV in Hindi.

Ramdas Athawale, president of Republican Party of India, visited the Union Territory recently and said that statehood should be restored. When Ms Raina was asked whether that was when it was decided that she would contest the Assembly elections, she answered in the negative.

"I had not even thought of contesting the elections. Young people asked me to become the chief minister for one day, saying that I could fix Pulwama," she said.

Ms Raina emphasised that she has experienced no difficulties despite not having many people from her community living in the region.

"When I came here to work, I used to move around in Pulwama without any security. I did not have any personal security officers (PSOs). Some people kept PSOs but I did not. I worked here for years and even established a Shivling in Pulwama. Muslims asked me to do so because I had got a wazukhana (ablution pond) constructed and did many other things for them. They said Hindus would get angry if I did not do anything for that community as well," she said.

Ms Raina worked in New Delhi and then got elected unopposed as a sarpanch in 2020

Jammu and Kashmir will see its first election in nearly 10 years as well as its first as a Union Territory after it was stripped of its special status under Article 370 in 2019.

Voting will be conducted for the UT's 90 seats in three phases between September 18 and October 1. Counting will take place on October 8.