Srinagar, May 1: While the political parties are busy with filing their nominations from north Kashmir’s Baramulla Parliamentary constituency, the tight contest is expected between National Conference (NC) candidate Omar Abdullah and Peoples Conference (PC) candidate Sajad Gani Lone.
However, it would be interesting to see whether the parties in the alliance at national level and have joined their hands under the amalgam of INDI Alliance will secure the seat as the twin parties including NC and Indian National Congress (INC) have managed to secure the seat 14 times out of the 15 Lok Sabha elections held since 1957.
In 1957 first Lok Sabha elections for the seat, Indian National Congress candidate Sheikh Muhammad Akbar emerged victorious while in the subsequent polls held in 1967 and 1971, the party candidate Syed Ahmed Aga has managed to secure the seat two times consecutively.
However, the then NC candidate, Saifuddin Soz, who is now a Congress leader, managed to secure the seat three times as he won the elections including one bi-election from the constituency in 1983, 1984 and 1989.
Again in 1996, the INC candidate, Ghulam Rasool Kar, defeated his rival—NC candidate, who served as the Member of Parliament upto 1998 and was later, defeated by the then NC leader Saifuddin Soz in 1998 Lok Sabha polls.
In the subsequent 1999 and 2004 parliamentary elections, NC’s Abdul Rashid Shaheen secured the seat. In 2004 elections, the Shaheen defeated his close rival and PDP candidate Nizamunddin Bhat by a margin of nearly 10,000 votes while in 2009 elections, the NC candidate, Sharifuddin Shariq defeated his rivals and emerged victorious from the seat by defeating his close rival and PDP candidate Muhammad Dilawar Mir by a margin of over 60,000 votes.
However, unlike the previous Lok Sabha elections, 2014 polls were different in the constituency as the people for the first time preferred to choose the candidate from different political as this time, it was Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, who defeated his rivals and both the parties by emerging victorious from the seat. Beigh defeated his close rival and NC candidate Sharifuddin Shariq by a margin of nearly 19,000 votes.
Back again in the previously held elections in the year 2019, the NC managed to secure the seat again as its candidate Muhammad Akbar Lone defeated his close rival from PC, Raja Aijaz Ali by a margin of nearly 33,000 votes.
As the two parties, who have managed to secure the seat majority of the time have forged pre-poll alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, it would be interesting to see whether the candidate from a bonhomie will manage to repeat the history.
However, the contest this time would be tough as the new parties, having a strong vote base in many areas have joined hands to fight unitedly and support PC candidate Sajad Gani Lone.
The political pundits believe that tight contest is expected between Lone and NC-Congress’ joint candidate Omar Abdullah in the constituency, which is slated to go for the polls on 20th May, 2024 where a total of 11.90 lakh including 6.24 lakh male and 5.66 lakh female are set to cast their ballots in 15 assembly segments.
