A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader named Iltija Mufti slowly emerges from one of the cars’ sunroofs.
“Yeli ye Mufti (When Mufti will be in power),” she exclaims, addressing the assembled audience of one of the most powerful political dynasties in the area.
They all reply, “Teli Tch’le Sakhti (Then the repression will end)”.
Soldiers with bulletproof vests keeping vigil from a distance, equipped with automatic guns, monitor every move.
Elections are being held in 47 assembly seats in Kashmir for the first time in ten years, long highlighted.
The area, which both India and Pakistan claim, has sparked three conflicts between the neighbors who possess nuclear weapons. An armed rebellion against Indian control has killed thousands of people throughout the 1990s, including security personnel and civilians.
The forty-three seats in the nearby Jammu region, where Hindus predominate, will also be up for election in three phases.
The election is the first since Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, autonomy, and federal administration were all taken away by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration in 2019. A federal administrator has been in charge of the area ever since.
