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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Only 2% turnout in Mehbooba’s south Kashmir home town
Mufti has never lost an election from South Kashmir and has been twice elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag, but the current battle is not an easy one. In 2014, she defeated the National Conference’s Mehboob Beg. She is in the fray once again along with 17 other candidates.
The first round of polling was held for South Kashmir’s Anantnag Lok Sabha seat in the third phase of the national elections on Tuesday. South Kashmir’s four districts have been a stronghold of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The Anantnag seat is spread over four districts, where polling is being held in three phases due to security concerns. The first phase of polling was held in Anantnag district, where Mufti won her first assembly election from Bijbehara, her home town, in 1996. Bijbehara recorded the lowest turnout of 2.04% on Tuesday as against 37% in 2014.
South Kashmir is the hotbed of militancy — slain militant poster boy Burhan Wani and the Pulwama bomber, Adil Ahmad Dar are amongst the local boys who joined militancy after an unpopular, ideologically-opposed alliance between the PDP and the BJP after the 2014 assembly elections. Dar detonated the February 14 car bomb that killed 40 soldiers in Pulwama.
Mufti lost power in June 2018 after the BJP withdrew its support to the PDP-led government.
Mufti has never lost an election from South Kashmir and has been twice elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag, but the current battle is not an easy one. In 2014, she defeated the National Conference’s Mehboob Beg. She is in the fray once again along with 17 other candidates.
Mufti is pitted against the NC’s Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi and state Congress chief, Ghulam Ahmad Mir. “Mehbooba Mufti has been winning from here but this time there is still resentment against her,’’ said Khalid Ahmad, a political analyst.
