Srinagar:
The BJP today released a list of 44 candidates for the three-phase election to 90 Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir. Two key names missing in the first list are former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta, also a former Deputy Chief Minister who now heads the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP has fielded Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh’s brother Devendra Rana, who switched from the National Conference. Two Kashmiri Pandits have also been fielded by the BJP. The party has named 14 Muslim candidates in the first list.
Jammu and Kashmir will vote in three phases on September 19, 25 and October 1. Votes will be counted on October 4. This is the first Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir after the erstwhile state lost its special status in 2019 and was bifurcated into two Union Territories.
The list of candidates was released this morning after the BJP’s Central Election Committee finalised the party’s poll picks for the upcoming election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda were at the key meeting in Delhi yesterday.
The last Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir was held in 2014. In the 2014 election, the BJP put up a stellar show by winning 25 seats and the PDP emerged as the single largest party with 28 wins. The incumbent National Conference won 15 seats and the Congress bagged 12. Following the election, the BJP and the PDP forged a surprise alliance government, led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then by Mehbooba Mufti after the former’s death in 2016.
This time, Jammu and Kashmir is headed for a tripartite contest between the BJP, the PDP and the National Conference-Congress alliance. The Congress and National Conference, however, are yet to iron out differences in seat-sharing. Top Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Salman Khurshid have been rushed to Srinagar to clear the roadblocks in the negotiations between National Conference and the local Congress leadership.
Earlier, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and vice-president Omar Abdullah and announced their alliance.
Scoffing at the tie-up, BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh, who is in charge of the party’s Jammu and Kashmir campaign, said the Congress-National Conference alliance will collapse like a house of cards and will face a humiliating defeat.
