Bandipora/Dec, 13: A 96-year-old man has casted his vote for the second time in his life on sunday during the sixth phase of District Development Council (DDC) polls at Turkpora village of Block B Bandipora in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district so to get rid from the unemployment in the area
Talking to this reporter, Mian Wali (96), sitting on wheelchair outside polling station at Turkpora said that he has voted today for the second time in his life for the development and to end unemployment in his area which he has never seen before.
He said that he had casted his vote once twenty years ago but at the time, it was a compulsion for the people to cast their votes as no one was casting vote for development and unemployment at that time.
“Since then, people have come to understand what is happening as there was no development in Kashmir and no end to unemployment.Later, after winning the previous election, people were becoming a ministers for their own families not for us,”he said.
Mian said that the candidates who are contesting in today’s election are our own local leaders.Anytime we can go to their homes if we have any trouble,God forbid, he said.
That is why today, after twenty years, “I think it is appropriate for me to caste vote because our own leaders and neighbors are contesting the election which can benefit us”, he added.
“We are facing a lot of difficulties because there is no leader in Kashmir now. In our time, whenever there was a problem, we would go to our leaders and today no one understands who we will go to if people had problems,” he added.
He also said that there are many educated young people in our area but they are unemployed. “It hurts me when I look at them because they are educated but unemployed. The government should think of these young educated people,” he said. We dont have proper roads and electricity, even we dont have proper mobile connectivity.
So my only hope now is that my vote will not be wasted today. I sincerely hope that the upcoming candidates will think well of their villages and will continue to develop. Futher the rest of them should also take special care of our educated youth, Mian added.