Woman Kashmiri Pandit To Contest J&K Assembly Polls For The First Time In Three Decades

New Delhi: A woman Kashmiri Pandit will be contesting the Assembly polls in Jammu & Kashmir for the first time in three decades. Daisy Raina, who used to work at a private company in Delhi and has been a sarpanch of Frisal village in Pulwama, is the lone candidate fielded by the Republican Party of India (Athawale), an ally of the BJP as part of the NDA alliance.

Raina will be contesting from the Rajpora Assembly constituency in Pulwama. She is one of only nine women contesting the J&K polls. She said she decided to take the plunge because she was forced to do so by youth, who wanted her to be their voice.

“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,” Raina told NDTV in Hindi.

“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 was quoted as saying.

Notably, Pulwama was the site of the 2019 attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed.  To a question on whether she thought Pulwama had an unsavoury reputation, the Republican Party of India (Athawale) leader told NDTV, “I don’t think so. Work is going on well. All my work is getting done… If there is a problem, we have created it.”

Raina said she used to move around without any personal security officers (PSOs) when she came to Pulwama to work. Raina worked in New Delhi and then got elected unopposed as a sarpanch in 2020.

Jammu & 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.