An eruption of anger and frustration has greeted the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Chief Electoral Officer's announcement that the revision of electoral rolls was likely to add approximately 2.5 million new voters in the Union Territory. Why was this not taken as a perfectly 'normal' course of action in J&K?
Probably because among electors who have come of age, the revised electoral rolls would also include "outsiders" ordinarily resident in J&K, security and armed forces personnel posted at a "peace station" like Jammu (as opposed to disturbed areas in the Kashmir Valley); and migrant Kashmiri Pandits who can register as voters in their home constituencies from wherever they are.
To understand the impotent anger of the ordinary Kashmiri, one has
