Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Cracks in INDIA bloc in J&K? NC fields Mian Altaf from PDP bastion of Anantnag-Rajouri
- Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The National Conference has announced the candidature Mian Altaf Ahmed Lahrvi from Anantnag-Rajouri seat of Jammu and Kashmir, virtually ending chances an alliance with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
The National Conference (NC) has announced the candidature of senior party leader Mian Altaf Ahmed Lahrvi from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat of Jammu and Kashmir, virtually ending chances of an alliance with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
The Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat is the home constituency of Mehbooba Mufti, and the PDP is an alliance partner of the Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference in the opposition INDIA bloc. Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti attended the INDIA bloc's show-of-strength ‘Loktantra Bachao’ rally in New Delhi on March 31.
A PDP stronghold
Lahrvi’s candidature was announced by NC vice president and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on April 1, a day after the New Delhi rally.
Mehbooba Mufti won the seat in 2014. Her father and PDP founder, late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, has also been a lawmaker from the erstwhile Anantnag seat in 1998, though he contested as a Congress candidate then.
Earlier known as Anantnag, the seat was rechristened as Anantnag-Rajouri after Poonch and Rajouri districts were also included in it in the 2022 delimitation exercise. While the Anantnag region in South Kashmir is dominated by Muslims, Poonch and Rajouri districts have a sizeable Gujjar and Pahari population. Lahrvi is a prominent Gujjar religious leader.
In 2019, the seat was won by NC’s Hasnain Masoodi and Mehbooba Mufti was relegated to the third position.
All three seats of Kashmir division were won by the NC in 2019. The two seats in Jammu division and the lone seat in Ladakh was won by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Lahrvi is a five-time former MLA, who has also been a cabinet minister in the previous NC governments.
The National Conference has been publicly insisting on contesting on all three seats in Kashmir, though the PDP wanted to field its candidate from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat. Both the parties have declared they would contest the Lok Sabha polls on their own.
BJP making inroads
Post delimitation, the BJP is trying to make inroads into the Kashmir division and increase its share of two seats in Jammu that it won in 2019. The party hopes to benefit from the inclusion of the Gujjar-Bakerwal dominated belts in the constituency, and by the union government's move to extend Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation to the Pahari community.
The Narendra Modi government revoked Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated it into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, on August 5, 2019.
The upcoming Lok Sabha elections would be the first polls to be held in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370. The voting in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in five phases beginning April 19 and the counting of the votes will take place on June 4.
Assembly Polls to the erstwhile state, administered by the Centre-appointed Lieutenant Governor since 2018, are slated to be held later this year.
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Business NewsPoliticsNewsLok Sabha Elections 2024: Cracks in INDIA bloc in J&K? NC fields Mian Altaf from PDP bastion of Anantnag-Rajouri
First Published:2 Apr 2024, 09:18 AM IST
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