Disenchanted not Disengaged | 'I won't waste my vote’

Bandipora, May 20: Abdul Ahad Reshi, 60, has been an aggressive voter, and all through his 40 years of casting ballots, he hasn't wasted a vote.

He feels it’s a sin not to vote but deep inside he feels fed up with the regimes that have come into power previously.

Moreover, the major factor that contributes to his hopelessness is that his five children are all jobless despite being educated.

Reshi works as a sand extractor from Lankreshipor village, where most of the community members are fishermen.

On Monday morning, Reshi was leaning toward the wall in the polling booth at Lankreshipora to catch some breath as the long queue of packed voters was getting suffocated.

Reshi who sports a salt and pepper beard said, “I am shy and don't share much of what I am going through.”

Reshi opened up showing his pigmented hands and his palms filled with blisters.

Reshi said he has five children, the younger among them is his daughter, 18, who is still studying.  Despite being graduates and postgraduates with computer experience, other children are all jobless.

Unable to secure a good future for them, Reshi says his children, some of whom are now married, were all working as labourers, some even helping him to extract sand.

"This is my life, and I don't have much expectation now, but I have voted all my life and will continue to vote," Reshi says.

On being asked why, he says. "I feel wasting this vote is a sin."

Another elderly villager, Muhammad Yousuf Reshi who supports a long floating beard shared his reason for the vote was to “bring change”.

"Our children have suffered, unemployment is high and by forming the government we want some ease and hope that people in power will listen to our pleas,” Yousuf said.

He also lamented about rising power bills and poor roads.

“Despite having our electricity we are not benefited. Moreover, our roads are so narrow that our economy is hit,” he said referring to the Kishenganga Power Project and Bandipora-Srinagar road.