Former chief minister and National Conference (NC) leader, Farooq Abdullah, is seeking re-election from Srinagar, a seat he won in a 2017 by-poll, in Thursday’s second phase of the 2019 general election.
Abdullah, who won the seat when he defeated his nearest rival, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Nazir Ahmad Khan, by a margin of 10,766 votes, faces a triangular contest this time around. Challenging him are Irfan Ansari of the People’s Conference and Agha Mohsin of the PDP.
A total of 12 candidates are in the fray in Srinagar, which was won in 2014 by PDP candidate Tariq Hameed Karra, who quit the party in 2016 in protest against civilian killings. The Valley went through an intense phase of civil unrest after the killing of militant commander, Burhan Wani.
Udhampur will also go to the polls on Thursday. Twelve candidates are also in the fray in the constituency, but the contest is to be seen mainly between Jitendra Singh, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Congress’s Vikramaditya Singh, grandson of the erstwhile ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh.
In 2014, Jitendra Singh defeated the Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad by a margin of over 60,000 votes. The minister is also up against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebel and former minister Lal Singh, who twice won the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket.
{{/usCountry}}In 2014, Jitendra Singh defeated the Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad by a margin of over 60,000 votes. The minister is also up against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebel and former minister Lal Singh, who twice won the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket.
{{/usCountry}}Jammu and Kashmir has a total of six Lok Sabha seats, two (Jammu and Baramulla) of which voted in the first phase on April 11.
Around 2.98 million voters will decide the fate of the 24 candidates who are in the fray in both Srinagar and Udhampur. More than 50,000 security force personnel will be deployed at 1,716 polling stations.
Deputy commissioner of Srinagar, Shahid Choudhary, said all polling stations in Srinagar have been declared hypersensitive. In the 2017 by-election, polling was marred by violence in which eight people were killed. The constituency recorded a low 7.6% turnout.
Political analyst, Gowhar Geelani, said the turnout could be better this time around than in 2017 because “the regional parties have been able to convey that Article 35A and 370 are in danger.” Article 35A gives certain special privileges to permanent residents of Kashmir. Article 370 assures autonomy to the state.