The high profile Udhampur and Srinagar parliamentary constituencies will go to polls in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday amid tight security arrangements, even as the campaigning for the second phase of the ongoing general elections ended this evening.
The Udhampur seat is, geographically, state’s largestparliamentary constituency spread over 17 assembly segments in six districtsincluding Kishtwar, Doda, Ramban, Reasi, Udhampur and Kathua in Jammu province.
An election official said 16,85,779 voters are registered inthe constituency—8,76,319 men, 7,89,105 women, 20,312 service voters and 43transgender.
A total of 12 candidates including BJP’s Jitendra Singh,Congress’s Vikramaditya Singh, former member parliament and minister ChoudharyLal Singh and former state minister Harsh Dev Singh are in the fray.
The seat, presently being representing by Jitendra Singh—aminister in the Narendra Modi government—witnessed a high voltage campaigningby political parties in the past few weeks to ensure maximum public support totheir respective candidates.
For the BJP, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself took the command of campaigning and addressed rallies in Kathua and Akhnoor in support of Jitendra. Home minister Rajnath Singh and BJP’s national president Amit Shah also addressed rallies in Bhaderwah and Udhampur respectively.
The new entrant into BJP and ace-cricketer Gautam Gambhir, party’s general secretary Ram Madhav, its J&K in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna along with a several state leaders held series of public meetings in Kathua, Udhampur, Reasi and Doda-Kishtwar region.
For the Congress party, leader of opposition in Rajya SabhaGhulam Nabi Azad took the charge of campaigning, alongside formersadr-e-riyasat Karan Singh, to seek votes for the party’s candidateVikramaditya Singh. Congress party’s star poll campaigner and Punjab chiefminister, captain Amarinder Singh and party’s general secretary JyotiradityaScindia also campaigned for Vikramaditya.
In the 2014 general elections, there were a total of 14,69,072 electors in the constituency and of these, 10, 42,375 (70.95%) hadvoted. Jitendra, who defeated Congress stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad in the 2014elections, was elected MP with 4,87,369 votes while Azad got 4,26,393 votes.
Interestingly, the then sitting Congress MP Choudhary LalSingh didn’t campaign for Azad, and after the elections ended, he parted wayswith the Congress to join the BJP. Presently Singh has launched his own party,the Dogra Swabhiman Sanghatan.
The Udhampur seat has mostly been a Congress bastion since1967, barring 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2009 when BJP’s Chaman Lal Gupta won fromhere, followed by Jitendra Singh in 2014. The election authorities said theyhave set up 2,710 polling stations across the constituency for smooth conductof elections.
For the high profile Srinagar constituency, officials said,there are more than 12.95 lakh electors.
At least 12 candidates are in the fray in the constituencyspread over 15 assembly segments in three districts of Kashmir, including Ganderbal,Srinagar and Budgam.
According to the figures provided by the office of chiefelectoral officer, J&K, the constituency has 12,95,304 registered voters,including 667,252 male, 627,282 female, 744 service voters (728 male and 16female) and 26 transgender.
The 12 candidates in the fray, among others, includeNational Conference president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah, SheikhKhalid Jehangir of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Aga Syed Mohsin of PeoplesDemocratic Party and Irfan Raza Ansari of J&K Peoples Conference.
The Srinagar constituency is presently represented by FarooqAbdullah who won the 2017 by-election from there. Abdullah got 48,555 votes andwon the seat after defeating PDP’s Nazir Ahmad Khan who got only 37,779 votes.The overall turnout recorded was 7.12 percent.
The election authorities said they have set up 1716 pollingstations for smooth conduct of elections in the constituency on April 18. Thepolling will be from 7am to 6pm.