The Congress party released its first list of nine candidates for the three-phase assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir late on Monday night. The party has fielded its general secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir from Dooru and former state unit chief Vikar Rasool Wani from Banihal seat.
The announcement came after the Congress clinched a seat-sharing deal with ally National Conference (NC) for the upcoming polls in the Union Territory. The NC will contest 51 seats and the Congress 32 seats as per the agreement announced on Monday evening.
One seat each has been allotted to the CPI(M) and the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP), the allies announced at a joint press conference at NC president Farooq Abdullah’s residence in Srinagar after day-long negotiations.
The two parties also said there would be a “friendly contest” in five seats of the Union territory.
Hours after the announcement, the Congress put out a list of nine candidates for the polls, fielding Mir from Dooru and Wani from Banihal.
The party also fielded Surinder Singh Channi from the Tral seat, Amanullah Mantoo from Devsar, Peerzada Mohammad Syed from Anantnag, Shaikh Zafarullah from Inderwal, Nadeem Sharief from Bhadarwah, Sheikh Riyaz from Doda and Pradeep Kumar Bhagat from Doda West.
Earlier in the day, the NC released the first list of 18 candidates for Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. The BJP also released a revised list of 15 candidates for phase 1 voting in UT on Monday.
The first phase of the assembly elections for 24 seats across 6 districts in Jammu and Kashmir will be held on September 18. The second on September 25 and the third on October 1. The counting of votes will be held on October 4.
The Last Elections
In the 2014 Assembly polls, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats. All the seats that PDP won came from Kashmir valley. The BJP finished second with 25 seats. All seats that the BJP won came from Jammu.
The PDP led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed decided to tie up with the BJP in an unheard-of alliance between the two parties with ideologies poles apart.
The PDP-BJP government, however, could not last the full 6-year term as BJP withdrew its support to PDP in 2018. Since then, the erstwhile state has been under central rule.