Srinagar: With the Election Commission of India setting up the stage for Lok Sabha election, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla-Kupwara parliamentary seat, the battle of the ballot is primarily seen between two rivals, National Conference (NC) and People's Conference (PC).
Baramulla-Kupwara Lok Sabha seat spreads from Karnah in Kupwara district to Budgam assembly segment which skirts Srinagar city and Gurez in Bandipora district. The 18 assembly segments have nearly 18 lakh voters. In the last elections, Akbar Lone of the National Conference had defeated Raja Ajaz Ali by 30,000 votes. Er Rasheed, who had contested as an independent candidate, had polled 102168 trailing Ali by just 1025 votes.
In the upcoming elections, Sajad Lone, former separatist-turned mainstream politician, is contesting against NC in Baramulla-Kupwara and from the last one month he has kicked up the campaign against NC even as the ECI was yet to prepare for the elections.
Lone has held dozens of poll rallies and meetings in the six assembly segments of Kupwara district and every day his party issues photographs of Lone garlanding the “new entrants” to his party. Lone’s workers and friends seem confident to win the elections against NC. But can someone like Er Rasheed spoil his dreams as he had in the 2019 elections when Rasheed polled over one lakh votes against PC’s Raja Ajaz Ali.
Er Rasheed had won two consecutive assembly elections in 2008 and 2014 as an independent candidate from the Langate segment of Kupwara district. He later formed his Awani Ittehad Party (AIP) in 2013. Rasheed is imprisoned in Tihar Jail for the last four years undergoing trial by the National Investigation Agency on charges of supporting militancy in Kashmir. His party has announced his candidature for parliament elections months ago.
Firdous Baba, spokesperson of AIP, told ETV Bharat that Rasheed will contest from jail if the court doesn’t grant him bail. He claimed that the main battle in the upcoming elections in Baramulla-Kupwara will be between NC and Rasheed.
NC will not field Akbar Lone owing to his "health issues", and the party is discussing candidature of Choudhary Ramzan, Mir Saifullah, Qaiser Jamsheed Lone and Aga Ruhullah Mehdi.
Sources in NC said that the party leadership is keenly thinking of fielding Ruhullah owing to his strong support in Shia voters in Budgam, Beerwa and Sonwari and Pattan assembly segments. They said that NC’s cadre in other assembly segments will support any candidate that the party fields.
Political observers say that the contest in this seat appears primarily between NC and Sajad Lone, as six assembly seats of this constituency lie in Kupwara district where poll battle after 2008 has been between NC and PC.
In the 2014 assembly elections, PC won two seats of Kupwara and Handwara where Sajad Lone defeated Choudhary Ramzan of NC. PDP had won two seats of Karnah and Lolab, but both its leaders have left the party. Before the 2022 delimitation, Kupwara had five seats, but a new assembly segment of Trehgam was created in the district.
In Baramulla’s seven assembly segments, NC has leaders present in all the segments while Lone depends upon the support of his colleague Imran Ansari, who has won the Pattan assembly segment in 2014 elections as the constituency has Shia votes which are divided between Ansari and Aga. In the segments of Rafiabad, Uri, Sopore, Wagoora-Kreeri, Gulmarg, Baramulla, Lone depends upon the support of others, and his chances can brighten only if he succeeds in making smaller alliances, which he has failed to do as yet.
In the seven seats of Baramulla district and three seats of Bandipora district, the votes will likely split between Apni Party’s Usman Majeed who is likely to contest his maiden parliament election as he has strong support in Bandipora seat which he won in 2014 against Nizam-u-Din Bhat who was then with PDP. Usman Majeed will have support in Rafiabad where Dilawar Mir has a strong support base.
Gani Vakil who is with PC too can help Lone as Vakil has given tough contests to Mir in assembly elections. Ghulam Hassan Mir of Apni Party has strong presence in Gulmarg and his votes can help Usman Majeed raise his electoral graph. Apni Party can take votes in Uri segment also as its president Altaf Bukhari has held several rallies where attended by big crowds.
Apni Party has good support in Sonarwari where Imtiyaz Parry, son of former counter-insurgent Kuka Parra, has good support in Hajin and Ajaz areas. Yasir Reshi who is with PC but has maintained distance from Lone, seems unreliable to support Lone. In Sopore, Congress candidate Abdul Rashid Dar has won the segment twice in 2002 and 2014. Dar has good relations with Altaf Bukhari, and it depends on Dar’s decision whether he will support NC’s candidate as Congress will support candidates of NC per INDIA alliance agreement.
NC believes that the three seats of Bandipora district—Gurez, Sonawari and Bandipora will draw good votes for its candidate. Hilal Akbar Lone, who is setting into the footsteps of his father, Akbar Lone, to contest assembly elections, draws significant support in Sonawari, as does Nazir Gurezi, who has won the Gurez segment twice.
Political observers believe that the contest in Baramulla will be interesting to watch as the main battle looks between NC and PC, but all depends on how voters choose their next MP.
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