Omar set to become Chief Minister after NC gets 42 seats, Alliance 49
All Hindu candidates of Cong lose again, two win from NC
*PDP, DPAP, BSP fail to open account; AAP gets one
*Many former Ministers, legislators bite dust; new faces win
*Shagun lone woman to enter Assembly; NC, Cong women faces lose
National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah is all set to become the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, after his party’s impressive performance in the Assembly elections, held after a decade. The NC won 42 seats of the 51 it contested while its ally-Congress bagged six of the 32 it fought. The NC got 35 from Kashmir and 7 from Jammu region. Overall, the Alliance got 41 seats from Kashmir and 49 in J&K with NC getting the highest number of seats of 42 in J&K after the 1996 elections when it had a landslide victory bagging 57 seats. BJP won 29 seats, its highest ever in J&K, but all in Jammu division. It failed to open its account in Kashmir. The PDP bagged three seats, all in the Kashmir valley. This is worst performance of the PDP as it won 16 seats in 2002, 21 in 2008 and 28 in 2014. Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party too failed to open its account while People’s Conference got just one seat.
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Oct 8: The BJP recorded its best-ever performance in the Jammu division winning 29 seats as against 25 of 2014 while the Congress hit an all-time low and just managed to open its account by getting lone seat of Rajouri with all bigwigs of the party including former Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand and many former Ministers and legislators biting the dust as results for all 43 Assembly seats of the division were announced by this evening.
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The BJP, however, suffered major setback when its UT chief Ravinder Rana lost Nowshera seat to NC’s Surinder Choudhary while most of its prominent leaders recorded impressive victories though it lost Ramban and Chhamb seats.
Out of 43 seats in Jammu division, BJP emerged single largest party winning 29 seats while National Conference got seven seats. The third place went to Independent candidates who got five seats. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of Arvind Kejriwal also opened its account with Mehraj Malik, a District Development Council (DDC) Member winning Doda seat. Congress secured just one seat while Ghulam Nabi Azad’s DPAP, PDP, BSP, Panthers Party and Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) which had fielded many candidates in the region, drew blank.
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Such was the poor show of the Congress in Jammu region that its top leaders like Tara Chand, working president and Vikar Rasool Wani, former PCC (I) chief finished third at Chhamb and Banihal respectively while former MLA Balbir Singh stood fourth at Jasrota. Party candidates Nadeem Sharief Niaz and Bhupinder Singh too came third in Bhaderwah and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seats Katra respectively.
It was virtually complete saffronisation of Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Udhampur and Reasi districts. BJP won 10 out of 11 seats in Jammu district, five out of six in Kathua, all four in Udhampur and all three in Samba districts. It secured two of three seats each in Reasi, Doda and Kishtwar districts. Ramban and Poonch were the two districts where the party failed to open account.
But for poor performance in Pir Panjal range, tally of the BJP would have been higher. Out of eight seats in twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch, BJP got just one seat of Sunderbani-Kalakote where Thakur Randhir Singh emerged the winner and lost seven though it finished second in all of them.
In 2014 Assembly elections, BJP had won 25 seats, Congress five, PDP and NC three each and Independent one in Jammu division. However, number of total seats was 37 while after delimitation, Jammu now has 43 seats. The BJP increased its tally to 29 and NC to 7. Number of Independent candidates went up to five.
This was best ever performance of the BJP. The Congress achieved dubious distinction of recording its lowest ever tally in the Jammu region winning just Rajouri seat where its candidate Iftikhar Ahmed scrapped through with around 1400 votes defeating BJP general secretary Vibodh Gupta. However, the Congress candidate had the backing of National Conference also as per the alliance between the two parties.
Both working presidents of the Congress including Raman Bhalla (Jammu-RS Pura South) and Tara Chand (Chhamb), former PCC (I) chief Vikar Rasool Wani and many former Ministers and legislators were humbled by the rivals.
The Independents made a significant impact in Jammu division winning five seats impacting prospects of both BJP and Congress.
Independent candidate Satish Sharma son of former Congress MP and Minister late Madan Lal Sharma turned out to be the giant killer defeating Tara Chand (former DyCM) and Rajeev Sharma, former MLA (BJP) at Chhamb. Satish jumped into the contest after being denied ticket by the Congress. As Satish won, Tara Chand was pushed to third place. Satish recorded victory margin around 7000 votes. BJP rebel Narinder Singh Bhau polled over 8000 votes.
Dr Rameshwar Singh won Bani seat as an Independent candidate defeating BJP’s Jewan Lal by around 2000 votes. Another Independent candidate Pyare Lal Sharma outclassed three-time MLA and former Minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori from Inderwal by nearly 600 votes.
Muzaffar Iqbal Khan, a Judge who took VRS to join NC but contested as an Independent candidate from Thannamandi after the seat went to Congress as per the alliance, emerged victorious defeating BJP’s Mohamnmad Iqbal Malik, by nearly 6000 votes. PDP’s Qamar Hussain, former MLA finished third as former Minister and Congress candidate Mohd Shabir Khan came fourth.
Choudhary Mohammad Akram son of late Congress stalwart Choudhary Aslam won Surankote seat as an Independent candidate for second time. He won the seat as a Congress candidate in 2014. Akram polled 34201 votes while Mohd Shahnawaz of Congress got 25350 votes. BJP’s Mushtaq Ahmed Bukhari, a former Minister who passed away after the polling, took 23773 votes.
A total of 346 Independent candidates contested in the J&K Assembly elections, with 339 of them failing to win.
Three and four Independent candidates were elected to the J&K Assembly in 2014 and 2008 elections, respectively.
BJP chief Ravinder Raina lost to National Conference nominee Surinder Choudhary from Nowshera seat by a margin of 7,819 votes. Raina had won the seat in 2014 Assembly elections.
However, BJP national secretary Dr Narinder Singh Raina defeated Raman Bhalla in Jammu South-RS Pura seat by over 2000 votes.
Prominent among others who won the elections for the BJP include Devender Singh Rana (Nagrota), former Ministers Sham Lal Sharma (Jammu North), Surjeet Singh Slathia (Samba), Pawan Kumar Gupta (Udhampur West), Devender Kumar Manyal (Ramgarh), Rajiv Jasrotia (Jasrota), Shakti Raj Parihar (Doda West), Chander Parkash (Vijaypur), and Sunil Sharma (Paddar-Nagseni), Kuldeep Raj Dubey (Reasi), RS Pathania Udhampur East, Daleep Singh (Bhaderwah), Baldev Raj Sharma (Shri Mata Vaishno Devi) and Ranbir Singh Pathania (Udhampur East).
Two-time MLA Balwant Singh Mankotia, who joined the BJP last year, won the elections from Chenani segment, defeating his nearest rival and former Minister Harsh Dev Singh by a margin of 15,611 votes. Singh, who heads National Panthers Party (India), is the cousin of Mankotia who polled 47,990 votes.
Darshan Kumar of the BJP defeated veteran Congress leader and two-time MP Choudhary Lal Singh by a huge margin of 16,034 votes from Basohli constituency, while Garu Ram, a two-time MLA of the BJP, scored victory from Suchetgarh segment by a margin of 11,141 votes.
BJP candidates Arvind Gupta and Yudhvir Sethi registered victories in Jammu West and Jammu East constituencies by over 22,000 and 18,000 votes respectively while Satish Kumar Sharma won from Billawar segment by 21,388 votes. All of them are first-timers.
The BJP had fielded many fresh faces in the Assembly elections and most of them emerged victorious.
Shagun Parihar (Kishtwar) defeated her nearest rival and former NC Minister Sajjad Kitchloo after a day-long seesaw battle by a slender margin of 521 votes.
Former SSP Mohan Lal won from Akhnoor by a margin of 24,679 votes, Former Director Bharat Bhushan emerged victorious from Kathua seat by 12,117 votes and Sunil Bhardwaj (Ramnagar) by 9,306 votes.
There are only two Hindu faces who have won the elections on the ticket of NC from Jammu division while this was for the second time that not even a single Hindu candidate from the Congress party could make it to the Assembly. Congress and NC had together fielded 30 candidates, including members of the Sikh community.
All Hindu candidates of the Congress had lost in 2014 but two from NC had won their seats including Devender Singh Rana and Kamal Arora.
However, the BJP which had emerged victorious on 29 seats have 28 Hindus and one Sikh member as none of its Muslim candidates, including two former Ministers, managed to win.
While Surinder Choudhary won Nowshera seat on NC ticket, Arjun Singh Raju was the second Hindu face to win the election for the same party from the Ramban assembly segment.
Raju polled 28,425 votes against his nearest rival and BJP rebel candidate Suraj Singh Parihar’s 19,412 votes to register a win by a margin of 9,013 votes. BJP candidate Rakesh Singh Thakur ended third by getting 17,511 votes.
Political observers said wrong selection of candidate cost the BJP Ramban seat which it had won in 2014.
The National Conference had fielded nine Hindu candidates, including a woman, but only two of them managed to win.
The Congress, on the other hand, had fielded 19 Hindu and two Sikh candidates, mostly in Jammu region, but none of them won and mostly ended as runners up in the hustling.
A the same time, one of the BJP’s 25 Muslim candidates in J&K including two former Ministers, managed to win the elections with most of them losing their security deposits.
The BJP had fielded a total of 62 candidates, but only 28 Hindus and one Sikh candidate secured victory in Jammu region.
Shagun Parihar was the lone woman to win the election from Jammu division. The BJP, NC and Congress had fielded one woman candidate each in the Jammu region. While Shagun won Kishtwar seat defeating former Minister and NC strongman Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo by over 500 votes, NC’s Pooja Thakur, DDC Chairperson Kishtwar lost Paddar-Nagseni seat to BJP leader and former Minister Sunil Sharma by about 1400 votes. Congress woman candidate Kajal Singh finished fourth at Bani.
Many former Ministers, who lost the election include Tara Chand, Raman Bhalla, Mula Ram, Yogesh Sawhney, Yashpal Kundal, Choudhary Lal Singh, Dr Manohar Lal Sharma and Vikar Rasool Wani, all from Congress; Aijaz Khan, Ghulam Mohd Saroori and Jugal Kishore Sharma, who contested the election as Independents, Abdul Mujeed Wani and Choudhary Gharu Ram (DPAP), Khalid Nujeeb Suhrawardhy, Sajjad Kitchloo and Ajay Sadhotra, all from NC, Manjit Singh (JKAP), Harshdev Singh (Panthers Party) and Zulfikar Choudhary and late Mushtaq Ahmed Bukhari (both BJP).
The Ministers, who managed to retain their seats were Sham Sharma, Sunil Sharma, Shakti Raj Parihar, Pawan Gupta, Rajiv Jasrotia, Chander Prakash Ganga, Surjit Singh Slathia and Devender Manyal, all from the BJP. The BJP had denied tickets to many Ministers including DyCMs-Dr Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta, Choudhary Sukhnandan, Bali Bhagat, Choudhary Sham and Sat Sharma.
Two out of three officers who took retirement to contest the elections won. Mohan Lal Bhagat, former SSP and Dr Bharat Bushan, former JKAS officer, won the seats for the BJP from Akhnoor and Kathua respectively while Mohan Lal Kaith, former SSP, lost from Marh as an Independent candidate. Congress candidate from Akhnoor Rakesh Bhagat was also a retired JKAS officer.
Among 25 Assembly seats won by the BJP in 2014, the party lost Ramban, Chhamb, Nowshera and Bani this time. New seats won by it include Nagrota, Udhampur and Bishnah besides five out of six newly created seats after delimitation.
Congress lost all five seats it won in Jammu division in 2014 including Surankote, Reasi, Gulabgarh, Banihal and Inderwal. However, it won Rajouri seat this time.
PDP had won Rajouri, Poonch and Darhal seats in 2014 but it failed to open account in Jammu this time.
NC had last time won Bishnah, Nagrota and Mendhar seats. It lost first two this time but retained Mendhar while gaining Banihal, Ramban, Gulabgarh, Nowshera, Darhal and Poonch.
The BSP came second in Kathua but failed to make any presence in rest of the seats in Jammu. The BSP had won four seats in 1996 (Kathua, Samba, Bhaderwah and RS Pura) and Vijaypur in 2002. Since then, it has been drawing blank in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party too failed to open it account though its candidates Manjit Singh in Vijaypur, Shah Mohammad Tantray in Poonch and Sahil Bharti in Ramgarh secured good number of votes.
The DPAP of former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad too fared badly at the hustings with none of its candidates failing to make their presence felt. Even former Minister Abdul Mujeed Wani was relegated to fourth place in Doda. Another former Minister and DPAP candidate Choudhary Gharu Ram polled just 237 votes in RS Pura-South seat.
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