Kashmir’s key political parties on Sunday raised fears of an election boycott, pointing fingers not at militants, the usual suspects, but at the State.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Srinagar, Waheed Para, accused a top police officer and Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari of an alleged campaign to intimidate their workers.

The parties claimed the police have rounded up dozens of their workers in the Srinagar parliamentary constituency, which is set to vote on Monday, to bring down the poll percentage and help the alleged BJP proxy.

If true, it would be the first time the State was facing allegations of enforcing a boycott.

National Conference’s (NC) Srinagar candidate Aga Ruhullah said they had been receiving calls from workers since Saturday night from places such as Chrar e Sharif, Hazratbal, Habba Kadal and Chadoora about their workers being summoned and detained by the police. He said they had already submitted a list to the Election Commission.

“If the Election Commission allows this, the question arises if they are serious about institutions and functioning democracy. If they are serious, then what kind of intimidation is this to use police force to tilt the logistics support?” Aga told a news conference. “We were expecting the polling percentage to rise but they are striking at that.”

Aga said workers who were the backbone of logistics and turn election campaigns into votes were being targeted.

The NC candidate regretted it was happening under the “supervision of the EC”. “This time people had participated in campaigns in an unprecedented way and the hope
was that polling percentage would rise so that people express their anger through faith,” he said. “Under EC supervision, this police state is working to benefit a particular political party.”

The PDP candidate levelled similar allegations and blamed additional director-general of police Vijay Kumar and Bukhari. “In the past, Kashmir has experienced boycotts at the behest of separatists. Today, we’re witnessing a similar scenario, with an IPS officer of ADGP rank, Mr Vijay Kumar, allegedly directing officials to minimise voter turnout by detaining, harassing our workers. Such actions serve the interests of anti-national elements, not India,” Para posted on X.

A spokesperson for the Jammu and Kashmir police said the allegations were baseless.