Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 2: In a dramatic development, PDP today lost one Legislative Council seat of Kashmir region with one vote after one of the allies of PDP-BJP combine seems to have cross-voted in favour of National Conference candidate Qaiser Jamsheed Lone, leading to his unexpected victory. However, despite this loss, PDP-BJP alliance managed to win four out of six seats, the elections for which were held today while NC bagged the remaining two.
Five PDP-BJP candidates (three PDP and two BJP) had already been elected unopposed. With this out of 11 seats, which have fallen or will be falling vacant, PDP-BJP combine has won nine (PDP 5 and BJP 4) while National Conference got 2. Congress hadn’t fielded any candidate as it was supporting NC on both the seats in lieu of Rajya Sabha berth for Leader of Opposition in RS Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had won the election recently.
Election was held today for four seats of Jammu province and two seats of Kashmir province.
Returning Officer Mohammad Ramzan, Secretary Legislative Assembly, declared the election results this evening. He said the PDP, BJP and NC won two seats each. The winners included Vibodh Gupta and Charanjit Singh Khalsa (both BJP), Surinder Choudhary (PDP) and Sajjad Kitchloo (NC) on Jammu seats, Javed Ahmad Mirchal (PDP) and Qaiser Jamsheed Lone (NC) on Kashmir seats.
Saif-ud-Din Bhat (PDP) lost on Kashmir seat while Romesh Arora (BJP) lost Jammu seat. Arora had withdrawn from the contest yesterday but since the last date for withdrawal had elapsed, the election was held for four seats of Jammu.
Kitchloo polled highest number of 29 votes followed by Surinder Choudhary (21), Vibodh Gupta (19) and Charanjit Singh Khalsa (18). While Engineer Rashid didn’t vote on Jammu seats, one vote of PDP-BJP combine was rejected. As Romesh Arora’s name also figured in the list of candidates, he didn’t get any votes due to withdrawal from the race.
For two seats of Kashmir, PDP’s Javed Ahmad Mirchal and NC’s Qaiser Jamsheed Lone polled 30 votes each and won while another PDP candidate Said-uf-Din Bhat got 29 votes and lost. All 89 votes were cast for two seats of Kashmir.
Official sources said two women MLAs nominated to the Legislative Assembly yesterday by the Governor on recommendations of the Government-Priya Sethi (Minister of State) and Anjum Fazili also cast their votes for PDP-BJP combine but they too couldn’t help the PDP won second seat of Kashmir as Bhat fell short by one vote.
The 59 votes polled by PDP-BJP included 28 of PDP, 25 BJP, two People’s Conference, two Independent candidates Pawan Gupta (Udhampur) and Syed Bakir Hussain Rizvi (Zanskar). Gupta was yesterday inducted as Minister of State and two nominated women MLAs.
However, going by the statement of Engineer Rashid, one of the PDP-BJP’s allies seems to have cross-voted for NC candidate Qaiser Jamsheed Lone as Rashid told the Excelsior that he did vote for PDP after receiving a written assurance that the PDP would pursue with the Centre for the return of mortal remains of Afzal Guru.
“It is their (the PDP’s) headache to see who didn’t vote for them. I publicly announced and voted for the PDP just I had done for Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Rajya Sabha elections,” Rashid said giving new twist to voting as NC candidate Qaiser Jamsheed Lone got 30 votes (15 of NC, 12 of Congress and 3 others). While MY Tarigami and Hakim Yasin openly voted for NC, the third vote of the party became a mystery following Rashid’s denial that he voted for NC.
The mystery vote for Qaiser led to his one vote victory and defeat of PDP’s Saif-ud-Din Bhat if Engineer Rashid’s statement that he voted for the PDP is to be believed.
In Rajya Sabha elections on February 7, Azad had polled same 30 votes leading to defeat of BJP’s Chander Mohan Sharma, who had polled 28 votes.
With two seats each going to the kitty of PDP, BJP and NC in today’s elections, the PDP-BJP have won nine and NC two seats in the total seats of 11 for which election was to be held. However, five candidates of PDP and BJP (three and two respectively) had been elected unopposed and, therefore, no election was held on five seats.
Five candidates, who had been elected unopposed were Chering Dorjey (Leh) and Sofi Yusuf (Kashmir), both BJP, Inayat Ali (Kargil), Firdous Tak (Jammu) and Yasir Reshi (Kashmir), all PDP. Dorjey was yesterday inducted as the Minister of State in the Government.
Dorjey and Inayat Ali will get full term of six years as they have been elected against regular vacancies (biennial category) to the Legislative Council. However, Sofi Yusuf and Firdous Tak will get four years term while Reshi will get two years term as they were elected against by-election vacancies under which only remaining term of the candidates, whose election to the Assembly caused the vacancy, is given to the candidates.
Sofi Yusuf has been elected against the vacancy caused by the election of NC leader Abdul Majid Bhat Laram to the Assembly while Firdous Tak was elected against the vacancy created due to the election of another NC leader Devender Singh Rana to the Lower House. Reshi was elected against the seat vacated by PDP leader Mohammad Ashraf Mir.
Rana and Laram had little over four years term left, which Tak and Sofi Yusuf will get while Ashraf Mir had over two years term left, which Reshi will get, sources said.
As the victory of these five candidates was certain even in case of contest, the NC-Congress alliance had preferred not to field candidates against them unlike February 7 Rajya Sabha elections on which the two parties (NC-Congress) had put up candidates even on the seats considered safe for PDP and BJP.
The elections for eight biennial vacancies were held as an equal number of MLCs are completing their term between March 9 and 16. They are Ajatshatru Singh (NC now BJP), BR Kundal (Congress), Syed Asgar Ali (PDP) and Khalid Najib Suhrawardhy (NC), all four in Jammu province, Narboo Gialchan (Congress), a seat reserved for Ladakh tehsil of Kashmir province, Aga Syed Ahmad Rizvi (NC), a seat reserved for Kargil tehsil of Kashmir province, Vijay Bakaya (NC) and Syed Mohammad Rafiq Shah (NPP now PDP), two seats of Kashmir province.
By-election for three seats was necessitated due to election of an equal number of MLCs-Devender Singh Rana and Abdul Majid Bhat Laram (both NC) and Mohammad Ashraf Mir (PDP) to the Legislative Assembly in the last year’s elections.
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