Non-tribals hold sway in race for Kokernag’s tribal constituency

Kokernag, Sep 18: As the first rays of the sun touched the remote village of Pohlu-Kalnag, 100 km south of Srinagar, Shareef Boker, 50, walked towards the polling booth to cast his vote.

The village, with its 300 households and a tribal population of Gujjars and Bakerwals, is situated on a hillock overlooking the picturesque Pir Panjal mountain range in the Kokernag area of south Kashmir's Anantnag district.

It lacks basic facilities like road connectivity, water, electricity, and healthcare.

Women from the tribe have no access to proper sanitation and hygiene, making them vulnerable to life-threatening diseases.

Patients and their attendants are forced to walk 6 km to reach the main road before they can get transport to the sub-district hospital.

Tragically, several deaths have occurred enroute to the hospital.

In 2019, local resident Ghulam Nabi lost his two young sons in a single incident. They slipped into a deep gorge near the village, and despite efforts by neighbours to carry them to the hospital, both died on the way.

Severely ill and elderly patients, as well as expecting mothers, often struggle to reach healthcare facilities due to the lack of road access.

“This time, I hope the candidate I am voting for will understand our hardships and address them as he is from the same tribe,” Boker says.

Ten tribal candidates are in the race for this reserved Kokernag-Larnoo assembly seat.

The constituency was designated as a Schedule Tribe (ST) reserved seat in the 2022 delimitation process conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) that followed the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of J&K into two union territories.

Like Boker, the tribals from different villages who confront similar problems have come out in large numbers to vote with the hope that their representative would take up their issues in the assembly and get them addressed.

The remapped constituency now has 91,280 votes of which only 28,150 are Gujjar-Bakerwal and the rest 63,130 are non-ST Kashmiris.

“We hope the candidates we are voting for will take our voice forward since they are among us,” says another voter Ali Khatana.

All the candidates have been assuring the tribals of addressing basic issues from unemployment to road connectivity, from potable water to healthcare.

The new electoral boundaries and the reservation of nine seats – three in Kashmir and six in Jammu for the scheduled tribes have already set the stage for the assembly elections to be held after a decade.

The other seats reserved for STs in Kashmir are Kangan in Ganderbal district and Gurez in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district.

While those two assembly segments have a substantial tribal population who will be voting for their candidates, however, in stark contrast the non-ST voters will be deciding the fate of candidates in Kokernag-Larnoo.

Hence, the tribal candidates are mainly competing to give equal rights to the non-tribal population.

The assembly segment was represented by former minister Peeerzada Muhammad Syed of Congress twice in succession from 2002 to 2014 and later by Peoples Democratic Party’s Abdul Rahim Rather.

Even as the issues of Gujar Bakarwals have dominated the election campaigns of all the candidates, all of them have been equally vocal about the concerns of the non-tribal Kashmiri population.

“Yes we vow to fight for the rights of Gujjar and Bakerwal community in the assembly but non-tribal brethren are equally important for us,” the candidates were heard saying during the campaigning.

Most of the candidates are related to each other, indicating all will get their own share of tribal votes.

“We would vote for the candidate who we think would work for our empowerment, employment generation, improvement of healthcare and education sector in our area,” said a group of youth sitting outside the polling booth near Botanical Garden in Kokernag and observing the election fervour closely.