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Indian-administered Kashmir headed to the polls under tight security with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party eyeing power for the first time in the disputed Muslim-majority region.More than one million residents are eligible to vote on Monday in the first stage of staggered elections in the Himalayan region, claimed by both India and Pakistan and the scene of two wars between the rival neighbours.

Voting started at 8:00AM local time in 15 constituencies near the de facto border that divides Kashmir along with the remote Ladakh region, home to mostly Buddhists, where temperatures have dropped to below freezing.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is staging a bold attempt to seize control of the 87-member assembly, a move that would have been unthinkable until very recently.

The party has traditionally had no base in the Kashmir Valley where residents’ resentment against Indian rule runs high.

About a dozen rebel groups have been fighting Indian forces since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence or for its merger with Pakistan. – AFP