J-K: Voting underway for Rajya Sabha seats

Voting was underway on Friday for the four Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir.

This is the first Rajya Sabha election from Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 and downgrading and bifurcation of the erstwhile state of J-K into two Union territories on August 5, 2019.

Voting is being held inside the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly complex here, officials said.

The elections for the four Rajya Sabha seats in J-K are divided into three notifications. The Election Commission of India had issued three notifications for the four Rajya Sabha seats in J-K, holding elections separately on two seats while the polls for the other two seats are being held under a common notification.

Chowdhury Mohammed Ramzan of the NC is in a direct contest with Ali Mohammed Mir of the BJP in one of the seats.

For the second seat, NC’s Sajjad Kitchloo is fighting against Rakesh Mahajan of the BJP.

For the third notification, the NC has fielded party treasurer G S Oberoi, also known as Shammi Oberoi, and its young state spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar against BJP’s Sat Sharma.

The NC and PDP issued three-line whips to their respective MLAs on Thursday to ensure their presence for casting votes in favour of the ruling party candidates.

The PDP as well as the Congress have announced their support to the ruling NC.

Going by numbers, the 41-member strong NC, which has the backing of the six Congress, three PDP and one CPM MLAs, and six Independents, is likely to sail through in three seats.

The contest for the final seat is razor-thin.

The Assembly has a strength of 88 MLAs out of which the NC-led ruling coalition plus PDP has 57.

The BJP, with 28 Assembly members, strategically named its Jammu and Kashmir unit chief Sat Sharma in the third notification.

Sharma has already got a crucial edge after the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference (JKPC) led by Sajad Gani Lone, an erstwhile ally of the BJP-PDP government, last week announced that the party will abstain from the Rajya Sabha elections.

The NC has expressed confidence that the party will win all the four seats.

The Union territory, with four Rajya Sabha seats, had remained unrepresented in the Upper House since February 15, 2021, the day when Ghulam Nabi Azad and Nazir Ahmed Laway completed their terms.

Two other members—Fayaz Ahmed Mir and Shamsheer Singh Manhas—completed their terms on February 10 the same year.