Will NC, BJP retain J&K’s 5 seats?
Srinagar, June 3: All eyes are on Tuesday’s Lok Sabha results, which will decide the fate of 100 candidates for five parliamentary constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir.
Nine counting centres have been set up across the five Lok Sabha constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir. Additionally, a counting center has been established in Delhi for the votes of Kashmiri migrants, which were cast at special polling stations in Srinagar, Baramulla, and the Anantnag-Rajouri constituencies.
The vote counting, scheduled for Tuesday, also includes the Udhampur and Jammu parliamentary seats in J&K. This will determine the fate of 100 candidates, including senior BJP leader and Union Minister Jitendra Singh, two-time BJP MP Jugal Sharma, and two former Chief Ministers—Omar Abdullah of the National Conference (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Other prominent candidates include former Ministers Raman Bhalla and Choudhary Lal Singh of Congress, GM Saroori of DPAP, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi and Mian Altaf of NC, Ashraf Mir of the Apni Party, and Sajjad Lone of the Peoples Conference. Former MLA Engineer Rashid is also contesting from Tihar Jail.
Officials have stated that all arrangements, including security measures and staff deployment, have been made at all counting centers.
In the 2019 elections, the National Conference won all three seats from Kashmir while the BJP secured two seats in the Jammu region. It will be interesting to see if NC and BJP will retain these five seats.
During the 2019 elections, NC’s Farooq Abdullah received 106,427 votes, with a voter percentage of 57.13% out of 186,832 votes polled. His main opponents were PDP’s Aga Syed Mohsin and Peoples Conference candidate Irfan Raza Ansari, who polled 36,609 and 28,668 votes, respectively. The National Conference has lost the Srinagar Parliamentary seat only three times since 1967.
From the Baramulla Parliamentary constituency, it was NC’s Mohammad Akbar Lone who emerged as the winner in the previous polls. He got 131,869 votes, followed by Peoples Conference candidate Raja Aijaz Ali with 102,212, Independent candidate Er Rashid with 100,042, and PDP’s Abdul Qayoom Wani with 52,766 votes. In the Baramulla constituency, comprising three districts of Baramulla, Kupwara, and Bandipora in north Kashmir, the turnout was slightly better at 34.61%, with 447,019 voters casting their votes.
From the south Kashmir constituency, retired High Court Judge Justice Hasnain Masoodi won the previous polls. He defeated his main opponents, Congress’s G.A. Mir and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti. Masoodi received 39,898 votes, followed by Mir with 32,534 and Mehbooba with 30,068 out of 122,898 votes polled in the elections.
Looking at the past, no political party has retained the south Kashmir seat for the last three decades.
