Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, BJP National President JP Nadda, and other senior BJP leaders will campaign for the party candidates in Jammu & Kashmir for the Assembly polls scheduled to start in the third week of September.

Polling in Jammu & Kashmir will be conducted in three phases, on September 18, 25, and October 1, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The counting of votes will take place on October 8.

There are a total of 90 assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, of which seven are reserved for SCs and nine for STs. According to the ECI, Jammu & Kashmir has 88.06 lakh eligible electors.

According to BJP sources, the top leaders of the party will campaign for the party candidates from September 8 onwards. They said the PM is expected to arrive in Jammu and Kashmir after September 10, but given his preoccupation, there might be some changes in his programme.

“The participation of Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, and other senior BJP leaders is already confirmed. The PM may campaign for the party candidates during the second phase,” they said.

The sources further said that the PM would address two rallies, one in Jammu and the other in Srinagar, but the dates for these rallies are yet to be finalised.

The BJP is contesting the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly polls without any alliance partners although the party may support some Independent candidates depending on the ground situation. The main opponents of the BJP in these elections are the NC-Congress combine. These two parties have entered into a pre-poll alliance which is basically aimed at keeping the BJP out of power in Jammu & Kashmir.

Senior leaders of both the NC and Congress have admitted that the formation of the alliance between the two parties has been a political compulsion to prevent the BJP from coming to power in the Union Territory.

While the BJP is well entrenched in the Jammu division with 43 Assembly seats, the party’s presence in Kashmir, where there are 47 seats, is not of predominant political significance.

During the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP did not field any candidate in the three seats of Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag-Rajouri in Kashmir.

The BJP supported the candidates of the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party headed by Syed Altaf Bukhari in Srinagar and the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seats and the Peoples Conference (PC) led by Sajad Gani Lone in the Baramulla seat.

The BJP-supported Apni Party and PC candidates did not win any of these three seats including Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag-Rajouri.