With the results of the much-hyped municipal elections out in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a joke has been doing the rounds on social media. It goes like this: “In Ward Number 3 of Srinagar, two candidates were in the electoral fray. Only three votes out of 30,000 were polled. Guess which candidate divorced his wife?”

The joke aptly sums up how the democratic process has been reduced to a travesty in the Kashmir Valley under an unprecedented security cover.