Electoral roll revision will not gift Jammu and Kashmir to the BJP

Muslim voters will play a deciding role in 10 out of 43 seats in Jammu, and in the valley's 47 seats, BJP may not be able to open its account. The arithmetic doesn't favour a BJP majority on its own

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