Attacks in J-K aimed at bringing down voter turnout in assembly elections, says Parrikar

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said the recent terror attacks in Jammu Kashmir was a desperate attempt to bring down the high voter turnout in the first three phases of the ongoing state assembly polls.

"Due to high voter turnout in the elections, I think this is an attempt to get it down again. But we have managed to get good voting. For example, the results in Tral have gone up from one percent to 37.8 percent. So, the people are coming out and voting in large numbers, it indicates that people of Jammu and Kashmir want to be part of India as a democratic set up," Parrikar told the media during his visit to the Badami Bagh Cantonment in Srinagar.

The Defence Minister, however, said that the possibility of increase in such attacks cannot be ruled out till the election results are declared.

"We are alert for it. I think that the moral of the army here is very good. And it was witnessed on that day in both the incidents where neutralizing the terrorists was carried out by the army in a very professional way. But casualties they suffered were at the beginning of the operation which was a surprise element of it, some unfortunate happening also. Otherwise army did it extremely professionally and no civilian was allowed to be touched that is the biggest success," he added.

Parrikar further said that the main purpose of his visit is to understand the working conditions and details about the forces. He also lauded the armed forces for ensuring that the civilians are not hurt.

Parrikar, who on his first visit to the state since taking over as the Defence Minister last month, earlier in the day paid tribute to martyrs at the Badami Bagh Army Cantonment. The soldiers were killed in the deadly militant attack in Uri last week.

Jammu and Kashmir, which is in the midst of its five-phase state assembly elections, faced four terror attacks earlier this month, which were aimed at undermining the democratic process.

The attacks were condemned by various political parties, who had previously stated that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had chosen ballots, not bullets to voice their opinion.

In the first and second phase of the elections, which took place on November 25 and December 2, the state saw a record turnout of over 70 percent, while the third phase witnessed 58 percent voting.