BJP wins Jammu & Ladakh; NC Valley

Dinesh Manhotra, Ehsan Fazili & 

Sanjay Pathak

Tribune Reporters

Jammu/Kathua, May 23

The BJP has repeated its 2014 victory by retaining the Jammu, Udhampur and Ladakh Lok Sabha constituencies, while the National Conference swept all three seats in the Valley.

The saffron party has scripted a new history by increasing victory margins on the seats manifold due to the Modi wave.

Notably, two arch-rivals — National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party — had supported the Congress candidates on both the Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats, but the party failed to win any seat.

Union minister and sitting Lok Sabha member Jitendra Singh has retained the Udhampur-Kathua Lok Sabha seat with a record  margin of over 3.5 lakh votes. In 2014 elections Jitendra Singh had emerged as “giant-killer” by defeating Congress stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad by 60,976 votes.  Jitendra Singh had polled 4,87,369 votes against Azad’s 4,26,393 votes.

This time the Congress had fielded the scion of the erstwhile Dogra dynasty Vikramaditya against Jitendra margin manifold. Jitendra got 7,15,406  votes while Vikrmaditya bagged 3,66,123 votes.

Despite facing a fight from the joint opposition candidate, BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma also managed to increase his victory margin. In 2014, Jugal had polled 6,19,995 votes while Madan Lal Sharma of Congress had mustered only 3,62,715 votes. 

The BJP also sprang a surprise by retaining the Ladakh seat as its candidate Jamyang Tsering Namgyal was declared elected by a margin of  10,000 votes. 

Srinagar: The National Conference on Thursday registered its victory on all three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir, routing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which had swept the Valley in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Though the voter turnout in this election is much lower than the last General Election, the National Conference once again regained the seats from its regional rival, PDP.

The poll results, have, however, reflected “anger and resentment” against the PDP for its “unholy alliance” with the BJP, which pulled out of the coalition in June last year. 

In the Srinagar constituency, retained by Farooq Abdullah after his victory in the 2017 bypoll, the voter turnout was 14.8 per cent, double from 7.2 per cent in 2017. 

Only 1,86,832 votes of 12,94,560 were polled in Srinagar, in which Farooq got 1,06,750, PDP’s Syed Agha Mohsin got 36,700 votes and People’s Conference Imran Raza Ansari got 28,773. 

The PDP in the Anantnag constituency of south Kashmir, which has been its bastion, registered a dismal turnout of 8.76 per cent. Mehbooba Mufti was elected from the seat in 2004 and 2014. Of the total electorate of 13,93,251, only 1,24,896 votes were polled in the three-phased elections. 

National Conference’s Hasnain Masoodi got elected from the Anantnag seat with 40,180 votes, GA Mir of the Congress got 33,504 votes and Mehbooba got 30,524 votes. It has been a swing constituency represented alternately by the NC and the PDP in the last four elections since 2004 after the PDP was floated by the Muftis in 1999. 

The Baramulla constituency in north Kashmir registered a higher poll percentage, electing NC’s Mohammad Akbar Lone. The constituency registered 34.9 per cent in this poll, slightly lower than the 39.19 per cent in the 2014 elections. 

Of the total 4,49,582 votes polled, Lone got 1,32,919 votes, Raja Aijaz Ali of the People’s Conference got 1,02,477 votes and Engineer Rasheed (Independent) got 1,00,667 votes.