It is being watched with curiosity that in what manner the poll participation of 58.46 per cent in this election, which is the highest in the past 35 years, reflects in the counting of votes on Tuesday for the 5 Lok Sabha constituencies of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir.
Counting of votes will be done under tight security arrangements with deployment of paramilitary forces across the UT.
There is excitement among the people for counting of votes for the Srinagar, Baramulla, Anantnag Rajouri, Udhampur and Jammu constituencies where the high profile candidates; Dr Jitendra Singh (BJP) Union Minister in the PMO, Omar Abdullah (National Conference), Mehbooba Mufti (PDP) and Sajad Lone (Peoples Conference) are among the nearly 100 candidates in the fray.
Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma of BJP on the Jammu and Udhampur seats respectively are aiming to make a hat-trick. Both have been winning the election since 2014 when the Modi government came to power.
Prestige of Omar Abdullah on the Baramulla seat and Mehbooba Mufti on the Anantnag seat is at stake. Although the political stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad backed out from contesting on the Anantnag seat, his political strength will depend on the number of votes his DPAP secures on the Udhampur, Anantnag and Srinagar seats. Azad vigorously campaigned for his candidates on these seats.
The so-called ‘B-teams of BJP’—Apni Party and DPAP—did not field their candidates in north Kashmir’s Baramulla seat in support of Sajad Lone, who was a minister from the BJP quota in the PDP-BJP coalition government.
Of the five Lok Sabha seats, the BJP contested only two, but the party leadership from within J&K and other states campaigned for the Apni Party candidate on the Anantnag seat. The sudden visit to Srinagar of Home Minister Amit Shah was considered as a signal to the BJP activists to support the candidates of the Apni Party and Peoples Conference on the three seats of the Kashmir valley.
These elections generated a lot of enthusiasm among the electorate and the Anantnag seat, which has been the epicentre of terrorism, recorded 54.84 per cent polling against 8.96 per cent in 2019.
The voter turnout of 50.86 per cent in the three Parliamentary Constituencies in the Kashmir Valley echoed the faith of the people in the democratic process as Srinagar and Baramulla also recorded 38.49 per cent and 59.1 per cent polling that was the highest in three decades.
The other prominent candidates in the fray include former Ministers Raman Bhalla and Choudhary Lal Singh of the Congress, GM Saroori of DPAP, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi and Mian Altaf of NC, and Ashraf Mir of Apni Party. Former MLA Engineer Rashid, who is in the Tihar Jail, is contesting the Baramulla seat.
Nine counting centres have been established across J&K. In addition, one counting centre has also been set up in Delhi for the counting of Kashmiri migrant votes which were polled by the displaced community at the specially set up polling stations in Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seats.