Today was the 4th phase of polling in the Lok Sabha elections, with voting taking place in 72 seats across 9 states, one of them was in Anantnag in south Kashmir for the first time in the electoral history of India, a single seat Anantnag is polling in 3 phases on account of security concerns. Yet, despite the heavy security deployment the region saw an abysmal 2 % voter turn out in the last phase and a little over 8% today. Raising serious questions about the security situation in the valley as well as the feasibility of conducting an assembly election something that both the national conference and the PDP have been vociferously demanding. Even though the special observers appointed by the Election Commission of India for J&K have reportedly given the poll panel to go ahead for the assembly elections. The question is the situation really conducive for it? Who is responsible for the abysmal voter turn outs that we've seen so far? The BJP led centre which is accused of having failed to bring normalcy back? Is it the valley parties that issued a boycott call for the local body elections last year? or are both equally responsible? and what is the way ahead for J&K?