Srinagar: At least three candidates who contested the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections in the second phase were seeking a record seventh term in the House.
These are the first assembly elections being held since 2014 and the first after the 2019 reorganisation of the erstwhile state.
National Conference leader and former finance minister Abdul Rahim Rather is seeking a seventh term from Budgam district’s Chrar-i-Sharief constituency, which he represented from 1977 to 2014.
Rather’s only electoral defeat came in the 2014 elections, when he lost to People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura.
The 80-year-old veteran is up against Hanjura once again as he tries to become the first Jammu and Kashmir politician to win seven assembly elections.
Rather’s party colleague and former minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, who is also seeking a seventh term, has never lost an assembly election.
The 66-year-old Srinagar strongman won his first assembly election as a 25-year-old from the Batamaloo seat, retaining it in the 1987 polls.
Sagar shifted to the Khanyar seat in 1996 and has been an MLA for four consecutive terms.
Hakim Mohammad Yaseen has also won six assembly elections from the Khansahib segment of Budgam district, the first of which came in 1977.
The only exception was in 1996 when he did not contest the polls.
The Chrar-i-Sharief, Khanyar and Khansahib constituencies went to the polls in the second phase on Wednesday.
There are several other candidates who are seeking sixth, fifth or fourth terms in the assembly.
Prominent among them is National Conference leader and former speaker Mubarak Gul, who is seeking a sixth term as an MLA from the Eidgah constituency in Srinagar that went to the polls on Wednesday.
CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami is seeking a fifth straight term from the Kulgam seat in south Kashmir while the PDP’s Abdul Rehman Veeri — who has represented Bijbehara four times — is seeking election from the Shangus Anantnag East constituency.
Both these constituencies went to the polls in the first phase.
The last phase of the assembly elections will be held on October 1. The results of the elections will be declared on October 8.
