SRINAGAR, India, May 13, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - India's six-week election is set

to resume Monday including in Kashmir, where voters are expected to show
their discontent with dramatic changes in the disputed territory under Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's government.

Modi remains popular across much of India and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win the poll when it concludes early
next month.

But his government's snap decision in 2019 to bring Kashmir under direct rule
by New Delhi -- and the drastic security clampdown that accompanied it --
have been deeply resented among the region's residents, who will be voting
for the first time since the move.

"What we're telling voters now is that you have to make your voice heard,"
said former chief minister Omar Abdullah, whose National Conference party is
campaigning for the restoration of Kashmir's former semi-autonomy.

"The point of view that we want people to send out is that what happened...
is not acceptable to them," he told AFP.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence
in 1947. Both claim it in full and have fought two wars over control of the
Himalayan region.

Rebel groups opposed to Indian rule have waged an insurgency since 1989 on
the side of the frontier controlled by New Delhi, demanding either
independence or a merger with Pakistan.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians
in the decades since, including a spate of firefights between suspected
rebels and security forces in the past month.

Violence has dwindled since the Indian portion of the territory was brought
under direct rule five years ago, a move that saw the mass arrest of local
political leaders and a months-long telecommunications blackout to forestall
expected protests.

Modi's government says its cancelling of Kashmir's special status has brought
"peace and development", and it has consistently claimed the move was
supported by Kashmiris.
But his party has not fielded any candidates in the Kashmir valley for the
first time since 1996, and experts say the BJP would have been roundly
defeated if it had.

"They would lose, simple as that," political analyst and historian Sidiq
Wahid told AFP last week.

The BJP has appealed to voters to instead support smaller and newly created
parties that have publicly aligned with Modi's policies.

But voters are expected to back one of two established Kashmiri political
parties calling for the Modi government's changes to be reversed.

- Nearly one billion voters –

India's election is conducted in seven phases over six weeks to ease the
immense logistical burden of staging the democratic exercise in the world's
most populous country.

More than 968 million people are eligible to vote in India's election, with
the final round of polling on June 1 and results expected three days later.

Turnout so far has declined significantly from the last national poll in
2019, according to election commission figures.

Analysts have blamed widespread expectations that Modi will easily win a
third term and hotter-than-average temperatures heading into the summer.

India's weather bureau has forecast more hot spells in May and the election
commission formed a taskforce last month to review the impact of heat and
humidity before each round of voting.