Mubashir Naik
Shakti Raj Parihar, the Bhartiya Janta Party district President Udhampur and National Council Member Bhartiya Janta Party and the Former Minister of State and MLA Doda Constituency has been defeated by a Young advocate, Asim Hashmi in the recently held DDC Elections.
Asim Hashmi, who contested the elections on the ticket of the National Conference was considered to be not even in the fight and the results have surprised many political commentators.
The seat was considered to be an ‘easy win’ for the Bhartiya Janta Party as a former Member of Legislative Assembly, whom many consider ‘Modi’s close aide, was himself contesting the elections from this Hindu-Majority area.
As per the official figures accessed by The Kashmiriyat, the National conference candidate Shakti Raj Parihar lost to National Conference’s Asim Hashmi by 1,336 votes. Hashmi got 7,835 votes and Parihar 6,499.
Shakti Parihar also lost from another DDC Seat from the Marmat area of Doda District in the Chenab Valley.
The Former Chief Minister of Jammu Kashmir, Omar Abdullah taking to Twitter denounced the “propaganda” of BJP that has been saying it has emerged as the single largest party in Jammu Kashmir.
“It’s amusing to see the desperation of the BJP propaganda wallas. Yesterday it was about 3 seats in the valley & today it’s about being the single largest party. They aren’t even embarrassed about making comparisons with JKNC which contested far fewer seats due to an alliance,” he wrote.
The Bhartiya Janta party has won three seats from the Kashmir valley, in one of those seats in Balhama Srinagar, the papers of the PAGD candidate, as per Sources, were rejected, which gave a no-battle victory to the BJP Candidate, in the Kakpora Pulwama seat they won, both National Conference and People’s Democratic Party fielded their candidates.
The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) has made advances in the Jammu region. Mehbooba Mufti, earlier in a press conference said that the PAGD was denied free campaign unlike the Bhartiya Janta Party that has continued its political activities even during the time of lockdowns imposed in Jammu Kashmir.
PDP Bags BJP President’s Home Constituency
Manohar Singh of the People’s Democratic Party has won the DDC seat of Nowshera in the Jammu region, which is the home-turf of the Bhartiya Janta Party state president, Ravinder Raina.
Figures accessed by The Kashmiriyat revealed that the PDP candidate has defeated the BJP candidate Mohinder Singh by a margin of 2,904 votes in the Nowshera DDC Seat, PDP Candidate Manohar Singh got a healthy number of 10,579 votes.
Nowshera along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan is the native constituency of Ravinder Raina, he was also sitting MLA of BJP in 2014 from this seat.
Raina is often heard bashing the Kashmir Politicians and promoting a hyper-nationalist narrative, but he has not said a word on this loss. In fact, taking to Twitter, he took the party line of “emerging as the largest single party.”
“I am very grateful to all of you from the depths of the heart for the tremendous public support the Bharatiya Janata Party has received. I sincerely thank the people of Jammu Kashmir especially the people of Jammu division who have made the Bharatiya Janata Party victorious by a majority,” Raina wrote on his Twitter.
The fact, however, remains that BJP contested almost all the seats in Jammu Kashmir, however, none of the parties’ People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration contested all the seats, in fact, there was a distribution of seat-sharing.
The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), led by Farooq Abdullah, won 112 seats of the total 280 constituencies in the maiden District Development Council (DDC) elections, while The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 75 DDC constituencies.
The Alliance got a comfortable majority in nine councils, while as the BJP took control of six councils. Five councils, where none got a clear majority, are up for grabs as the focus moves onto independent candidates.