SRINAGAR, India, Sept 25, (AP): Under elaborate security, residents in Indian-controlled Kashmir began casting their votes Wednesday in the second phase of a staggered election for a local government. About 2.6 million residents are eligible to elect 26 of the 239 candidates in six districts, including in the biggest regional main city of Srinagar, where voters in some polling booths queued outside early in the morning.

The region's chief electoral officer in a statement said over 24% voting was recorded through 11 am. It is the first such election in a decade, and the first since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s semi-autonomy in 2019. The former state was also downgraded and divided into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir.

Both are ruled directly by New Delhi, allowing it to appoint administrators to run them along unelected bureaucrats and security setup. The region has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media freedoms gagged. The vote also comes for the first time in over three decades without any boycott call from separatists who challenge Indian’s sovereignty over Kashmir.

Polls in the past have been marked with violence, boycotts and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism. "Our first and foremost issue is restoration of (the region’s) semi-autonomy and statehood. That is why I am voting,” said Mehraj Ud Din Malik, a voter in Srinagar. "Other developmental works will follow as they are our basic rights.”

Except for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, most parties contesting the election have expressly been campaigning on promises to fight for reversing the 2019 changes and address other key issues like rising unemployment and inflation in the region. India’s main opposition, the Congress party, which is fighting the election in alliance with Kashmir’s National Conference, favors restorating the region’s statehood.