Family of 11 votes for basic amenities in Kullar area of Pahalgam

Anantnag, Sep 18: Noor Alam brought all family members who are eligible to vote to the polling booth located in the Pahalgam assembly constituency. He said that their family of 11 has been craving for basic amenities like water and roads for years, and the lack of representation for a decade made it worse.

On Wednesday, as the people in Pahalgam in south Kashmir’ Anantnag were voting in huge numbers, Alam was accompanying his six family members, including his elderly parents, to cast their vote in the assembly elections.

“The other five members are not eligible yet; otherwise, I would have brought them, too. We are desperate to get a representative to fulfill our major demands,” Alam said.

He said despite their elders voting for decades, they are unable to get even the basic facility in their remote village of Kullar.

“You name any facility, be it water, road, healthcare, or electricity, we don’t have any. We have to fetch water by walking around a kilometer away. In the era of modernity, we don’t have access to water at home. The second issue that we are facing is electricity, we have electric lines but we rarely have a glimpse of electricity. These are the issues that we travel kilometers to this polling station to cast our vote,” Alam said.

Mohammad Shafiq, another local from the village, said that the absence of a motorable road is another issue faced by the locals. He said that in case of medical emergencies, they face a lot of hardships, and they want to address their issues by exercising their right to vote.

“With no MLA elected for the last decade, we have nowhere to go. We need someone who can address the issues at the local level. Everyone cannot have access to LG administration or bureaucrats. That is why we came out to vote,” said Shafiq.

The voters said that the village has around 100 households and most of them are economically weak and work as labourers.

“We are not able to earn a few thousand rupees per month, and the electricity bills are skyrocketing. Amid a scarce power supply, we have to pay 1200 rupees per month for power bills. We want to elect a representative who can empathise with us and address our issues,” said another local from the village.