The campaigning for the first leg of polling in the Anantnag LokSabha constituency, spread over four vast districts, ended on Sunday.
The four districts include Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama andShopian.
Anantnag district will go to the polls on Tuesday (April 23)in the third phase of the ongoing general elections.
Considering the security scenario, the Election Commissionof India (ECI), in an unprecedented move, decided to hold the elections in thisrestive LokSabha seat in three phases.
While the Kulgam district will vote during the fourth phaseon April 29, the elections in the twin districts of Pulwama and Shopian will beheld in the fifth phase on May 6.
It was relatively a low-key campaigning across the southernconstituency, with no major rallies held by political parties and most of thecampaigning remaining confined to Dak Bungalows and Town Halls.
Peoples Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti, who isfacing an uphill task of retaining her winning streak, made her presence feltby holding some rallies here.
She is locked in a direct contest with senior Congressleader and chief of the party in J&K Ghulam Ahmad Mir, thejudge-turned-politician HassnainMasoodi and BJP’s candidate SofiYousuf, who has been a MLC in theprevious PDP-BJP government.
18 candidates are in the poll fray in the LokSabha seat,including a Supreme Court lawyer from New Delhi, Shams Khawaja.
An election official said there were around 12 rallies heldin Anantnag district during the campaigning period, which by and large remainedpeaceful.
The polling in south Kashmir will be keenly watched withinand outside Kashmir as the region has been on the edge ever since 2016.
In April 2017, the government, fearing violence, had tocancel the Anantnag seat by-elections that were necessitated after MehboobaMufti vacated it to return to the state politics.