With Omar’s nomination, north Kashmir to witness a clash of titans
After ages, someone other than Abdullah family, Aga Rohullah to contest from Srinagar
Srinagar: Baramulla-Kupwara LS constituency is all set to to a clash of titans as two top leaders of Kashmir, Sajad Lone of JKPC and Omar Abdullah of JKNC are pitched against each other here.
National Conference today announced that its Vice President, Omar Abdullah would contest from north Kashmir seat.
JKPC President, Sajad Lone has already announced to contest from there and PDP has also nominated its former Rajya Sabha MP, Fayaz Mir to contest from there.
Fayaz Mir, it may be mentioned here, left PDP and joined JKPC for sometime and then again joined PDP.
Srinagar, the summer capital of J&K, always used to be the main focus of Lok Sabha elections as most of the times since ages, it was someone from Shiekh Abdullah’s family that would contest from here, but this time, it is different.
From Begum Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah to Farooq Abdullah to Omar Abdullah, Srinagar LS seat has been represented by three generations of Abdullah family. However, this time round, the family shifted to north, as the party decided to field party’s Vice President, Omar Abdullah from Baramulla-Kupwara LS seat.
After the abrogation of Article 370, and the downgrading and division of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, Omar Abdullah, the NC vice-president, had announced he would not contest Assembly elections unless J&K’s statehood was restored.
Spread over 18 Assembly segments, the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat would be one of the keenly watched contests as electoral dynamics in the constituency have changed after delimitation.
The constituency, which encompasses four districts of Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora and parts of Budgam, is pegged for a key contest with a largely direct fight between the NC and Peoples Conference chief Sajad Gani Lone.
The junior Abdullah would be banking heavily on Shia support as the constituency has many Shia dominated areas that include Budgam, Beerwah, Pattan, Sonawari and Bandipora, among other pockets.
Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency was redrawn in the delimitation exercise, undertaken after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, to include two Assembly seats of Budgam district — Budgam and Beerwah — both Shia dominated, and one each new assembly segment in Baramulla and Kupwara.
Before delimitation, the constituency has been a forte of the NC as the party has wrested the seat ten times since 1957. The Congress has won four times and the PDP once.
In the last general elections in 2019, NC candidate Mohammad Akbar Lone secured 133,426, defeating his nearest rival Raja Aijaz Ali of the Peoples Conference who polled 1,03,193 votes.
Independent candidate Sheikh Abdul Rashid polled 1,02,168 votes to grab the third spot, while the PDP candidate Abdul Qayoom Wani with 53,530 votes stood at number four.
Rashid, who contested the last elections but is under NIA custody on terror-funding charges, has an influence in the Langate Assembly segment of the constituency which he represented in the erstwhile J&K Legislature twice.
His party, Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), has announced it will field Rashid, who is currently in detention in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, from the seat for the Lok Sabha polls.
The PDP, which stood at a distant fourth place in the last elections, has fielded former Rajya Sabha MP Fayaz Mir.
This will be the first time since the 2009 general elections that Omar Abdullah will contest the Lok Sabha polls.
He was first elected to Lok Sabha in 1998, at the age of 28, when he won the elections from Srinagar, becoming the youngest member. In 1999, he was re-elected to the 13th Lok Sabha, and on October 13, 1999, took oath as Union Minister of State, Commerce and Industry.
On 22 July 2001, he was made Union Minister of State for External Affairs.
However, Omar Abdullah resigned from the post on December 23, 2002, to concentrate on party work.
The party has already fielded senior Gujjar leader Mian Altaf from Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat.
The party, which is a part of the opposition’s INDIA-bloc, is contesting on three seats in Kashmir valley, while it has left two seats in Jammu and one seat in Ladakh to its ally Congress.
Srinagar goes to polls on May 13 while voting in Baramulla will be held on May 20. (With inputs from PTI)
