Dr Jitendra, Jugal score hat-trick as Cong fails to open account in J&K for third time
BJP emerges single largest party in UT with 24.36% votes
Former Minister among 88 pc candidates lose security deposit
BJP leads in most of Assembly seats in Jammu division
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 4: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today retained both Parliamentary seats of Jammu division with its candidates Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma scoring hat-tricks from Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Reasi Lok Sabha constituencies but with drastically reduced margins as compared to 2019 polls.
Dr Jitendra Singh retained Udhampur-Doda seat defeating Choudhary Lal Singh of Congress with 1,24,373 votes while Jugal Kishore Sharma won Jammu-Reasi seat trouncing Raman Bhalla of Congress with 1,35,498 votes. Both of them won the seats for third consecutive term having been elected to Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019 as well.
Dr Jitendra Singh, who served as the Minister of State in PMO for last 10 years secured 5, 71,076 votes out of a total of 11,13,727 votes polled in Udhampur-Doda seat as against former Minister and Congress candidate Choudhary Lal Singh’s 4,46,703 votes.
DPAP candidate and former Minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori finished third securing 39,599 votes. BSP candidate Amit Kumar could muster only 8642 votes.
BJP candidate on Jammu-Reasi seat Jugal Kishore Sharma secured 6,87,588 votes as against his immediate rival and Congress candidate Raman Bhalla’s 5,52,090. Bhalla, a former Minister, had also lost to Sharma in 2019 election.
BSP’s Jagdish Raj got 10,300 votes while Independent candidate Ankur Sharma polled 4278 votes.
In 2019, the BJP’s victory margin in Udhampur seat was 3,57,252 while in Jammu seat, the margin was 3,02,875.
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Out of 18 Assembly seats of Udhampur-Doda Parliamentary constituency, BJP’s Dr Jitendra Singh secured lead in 14 while Lal Singh got lead in four.
Four seats where Lal Singh got lead were Inderwal, Bhaderwah, Doda and Banihal while Dr Jitendra Singh led in all other 14 Assembly constituencies. Lal Singh even trailed in Basohli Assembly segment of Kathua district, which he represented in 1996 and 2002 as Congress candidate and 2014 as the BJP nominee while his wife Kanta Andotra won it once in a by-election.
Lal Singh trailed in all six Assembly seats of Kathua district, four of Udhampur district and Kishtwar, Padder Nagseni, Doda West and Ramban Assembly constituencies of erstwhile Doda district.
In Jammu constituency also, BJP lead ij most of the Assembly seats.
This is the third consecutive Parliament election when the Congress failed to open its account in Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2014, BJP and PDP won three seats each in J&K while in 2019, the BJP and NC shared three seats each.
The BJP emerged as single largest party in terms of percentage of votes secured in Jammu and Kashmir.
As per the figures released by the Election Commission, BJP secured 24.36 percent votes followed by National Conference which polled 22.30 percent votes. Congress got 19.38 percent and PDP 8.48 percent votes. Others got 23.94 percent votes.
National Conference and PDP contested three seats each while BJP and Congress were in the fray in two seats each only. The BJP supported Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) candidate Zaffar Iqbal Manhas on Anantnag-Rajouri constituency.
The BJP got 24.36 per cent (12,44,404) vote share, followed by the National Conference (NC) which got 22.30 per cent votes share (11,39,084 votes). The Congress 19.38 per cent vote share (9,90,182), followed by Independents getting a vote share of 23.94 per cent (12,23,161 votes). The PDP got 8.48 vote share (4,33,049 votes).
However, as compared to 2019, the BJP got lesser vote share.
As per the ECI data in 2019, the BJP had received 46.39 per cent vote share by securing 16,48,041 votes out of total 3,479,155 votes polled in multi-phased elections in six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir followed by the Congress with 28.47 per cent.
In 2019, Ladakh seat was part of Jammu and Kashmir.
NC, which bagged three seats in 2019, polled just 8 per cent of votes.
Meanwhile, amid the bursting of crackers and showering of flowers, Dr Jitendra Singh was taken in a victory procession from the counting centre in Kathua town by joyous BJP workers. He straightway went to Mukerjee Chowk and paid homage to Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji.
Dr Singh expressed gratitude to the people of the Udhampur-Doda constituency for the victory.
“First of all, I want to thank the people of Udhampur-Doda constituency from the core of my heart. They have given their full support and again gave me this responsibility,” he said.
“This seat will add to the tally to make a Government led by Prime Minister Modi for the third time,” he said.
In 2019, Dr Singh defeated Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by a margin of 3,57,252 votes. In 2014, he won against former Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad by 60,976 votes and was subsequently appointed Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Choudhary Lal Singh previously won the Udhampur seat on a Congress ticket in 2004 and 2009. A former MLA and Minister in the PDP-Congress and PDP-BJP governments, Lal Singh rejoined Congress in March 2024.
The Udhampur constituency has been alternating between the Congress and the BJP.
Congress won six consecutive times from 1967, while BJP’s Prof Chaman Lal Gupta secured three successive victories in 1996, 1998 and 1999 before Lal Singh’s two-term win in 2004 and 2009.
Dr Jitendra Singh’s victories mark a significant achievement, underscoring the BJP’s stronghold in the region, BJP’s unit president Ravinder Raina said.
“We won both the seats of Jammu and Udhampur with a large margin as people have reposed full faith in BJP and its candidates under the leadership of Modi,” he said
Meanwhile, over 88 per cent of candidates, including a former Minister, lost their security deposit for failing to secure a minimum of one-sixth of the total valid votes polled in Udhampur and Jammu Lok Sabha constituencies in Jammu
None of the above (NOTA) option availed by the voters outnumbered a number of the candidates in the two constituencies
According to officials, Saroori along with nine other candidates in the fray have forfeited their security deposit for failing to secure the minimum one-sixth of the total valid votes polled in the constituency.
The NOTA option was availed by 12,938 voters in the Udhampur constituency, which went to polls in the first phase on April 19 and registered over 68 per cent voter turnout.
The NOTA votes are the fourth highest as none of the other nine candidates were able to cross the four-digit figures.
The NOTA gives an option to voters to reject all candidates in a constituency.
Bahujan Samaj Party’s Amit Kumar secured only 8,642 votes while Independent candidate Sachin Gupta stood last in the tally by polling only 1,463 votes.
In Jammu, the NOTA got 4,645 votes, which was higher than the rest of the 18 candidates including Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal chief and lawyer Ankur Sharma who got a total of 4,278 votes.
Qari Zaheer Abbas Bhatti of All India Forward Bloc stood last with only 984 votes.
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