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Josy Joseph in Baramulla
Electioneering for the first phase of polling in Baramulla district in Jammu and Kashmir came to an end on Saturday, though, apart from a few posters, there wasn't much to suggest the district would be going to the polls in the next 48 hours.
The recent killing of law minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, attacks on election rallies and numerous candidates have scared the population in the Kashmir valley.
Pattan town, still a stronghold of militants, has seen no rallies, public meetings or door-to-door campaigns. Pervez, a shopkeeper, said nobody wants to be seen either 'boycotting the polls or participating in it'.
Locals admit that there was sizeable enthusiasm for the polls. "At least, we wanted to remove Farooq Abdullah," says Suban, an old man, who admitted that the more than a decade old militancy has stifled their lives.
A few kilometres ahead on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, at Sangrama, a group of truck drivers are having a hurried lunch. "I need to deliver my load and get out," says Pramod, a truck driver from Punjab who is ferrying CNG cylinders to Uri.
Nasir Hussain, an Aligarh Muslim University graduate, said he would vote if 'there is no militant attack', echoing local sentiment.
In nearby St Joseph's hospital, nearly two-dozen patients are preparing to leave. One patient said she wants to be 'with her husband and children' on the polling day. "Anything could happen, I don't want to be away from them," she added.
In the rain-washed afternoon, hundreds of security personnel were seen taking up positions along the highway in preparation for the polling.
The only semblance of any sort of campaigning was visible an hour's drive away from Srinagar, when a campaign vehicle of the Congress sped through throwing out posters carrying, strangely, Rajiv Gandhi's photographs.
The Centre is still hopeful that voter turnout would be 'far more than what is being projected, and not like the sham of 1996', a central intelligence agency official said.
It appears more like the government is bent on making a success of the elections while the militants are equally determined to ensure just the opposite.
Random queries about the elections elicit little response.
Staring at the cloudy sky, an elderly man in a hotel in Pattan said, "Don't trust our weather, our words and us."
The truth behind the remark could probably be revealed only on Monday.
Jammu and Kashmir Elections 2002: The complete coverage
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