In a noteworthy development, former chief ministers Omar Abdullah (National Conference) and Mehbooba Mufti (PDP) on Tuesday conceded their defeat in the Lok Sabha elections even as counting of votes was underway.
Omar contested the election from North Kashmir’s Baramulla constituency where the jailed terror funding accused Engineer Rashid was leading by more than 2,04,528 votes over him. Rashid polled 45.75 per cent votes against 25.94 per cent of Omar. Rashid came to limelight when a few years ago he hosted a beef party in Srinagar’s MLAs hostel.
Mehbooba Mufti lost by more than 2,79,279 votes from the Gujjar spiritual leader Mian Altaf of National Conference in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat of South Kashmir.
Of the 5 Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP and National Conference were maintaining a substantial lead on 2 seats each. Engineer Rashid, who is contesting the election from Tihar Jail, has achieved an unbeatable lead in Baramulla.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma retained their Udhampur and Jammu seats and made a hat-trick.
BJP backed candidates on all three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir valley are continuing to trail and they have conceded their defeat on social media.
This Lok Sabha election is the first general election being held in the erstwhile state since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi of the National Conference had achieved a lead of 1,85,211 votes over the PDP candidate Waheed Ur Rehman Para till the last update by the ECI. BJP’s Dr Jitendra Singh’s lead over the Congress candidate Chaudhary Lal Singh in Udhampur was of more than 1,23,789 votes while counting was still underway. Jugal Kishore (BJP) had maintained a lead of 1,31,540 votes over Raman Bhalla of Congress.
As per the expectations, the National Conference rebel and an independent Mohammad Haneefa in the lone Lok Sabha constituency of Ladakh has won defeating the Congress candidate Tsering Namgyal and BJP’s Tashi Gyalson. Haneefa had bagged 65,259 votes till the last update by the ECI. Namgyal got 37,397 and Gyalson got 31,956 votes.
Jammu and Kashmir in this election recorded its highest poll participation in the last 35 years. The Combined Voter Turnout at the polling stations for the entire Union Territory was 58.46 per cent.
Peoples Conference chief Sajad Lone, who was a minister from the BJP quota in the PDP-BJP coalition government, polled only 16.72 per cent votes in Baramulla and he also conceded his defeat even before the result was officially declared.
The Apni Party of Altaf Bukhari, for whose candidates senior BJP leaders from within J&K and other states campaigned in the election, polled a dismal 13.89 per cent and 9.77 per cent votes in Anantnag and Srinagar constituencies respectively.
Veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit the Congress and formed his own Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), failed to show his strength as his party candidates performed very badly by polling 2.24 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 3.56 per cent votes in the Srinagar, Anantnag and Udhampur constituencies respectively.
Among all five Lok Sabha seats in J&K, Mian Altaf (NC) had gained the highest lead of 2,79,279 votes in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat where the BJP government had granted Scheduled Tribe status and 10 per cent reservation in jobs to the Pahari community shortly before the elections were announced.