The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) has announced the names of candidates for six assembly segments in the second phase of elections in the Union territory.
The list includes JKPCC chief Tariq Hameed Karra, who will contest from the Central-Shalteng seat in Srinagar. The other five candidates are Mumtaz Khan for Reasi, Bhupendra Jamwal for Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, Iftikhar Ahmad for Rajouri (ST), Shabir Ahmad Khan for Thanamandi (ST), and Muhammad Shahnawaz Choudhary for Surankote (ST).
The announcement comes after a meeting of Congress's Central Election Committee (CEC) in New Delhi on Monday, during which the names of 23 candidates for the second and third phases were approved.
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The meeting was presided over by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, along with other senior committee members. Karra also attended the meeting.
Karra stated that there was an in-depth discussion on the 29 seats, focusing on the candidates for the second and third phases.
"We were asked to provide more details about one of the six seats going to polls in the second phase and about five seats out of 23 in the third phase," he said.
He added that candidates for 23 seats were approved, including five for the second phase and 18 for the third. He mentioned that details for one seat under discussion would be provided to the CEC in the evening.
The Congress and the National Conference (NC) have formed a pre-poll alliance, contesting 32 and 51 seats, respectively, in the 90-member assembly. The two parties will have a friendly contest in five seats, while one seat each has been allocated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Jammu-based National Panthers Party (NPP).
The two parties had previously contested the Lok Sabha polls jointly. The NC won two of the three seats it contested in the Kashmir Valley, while the Congress lost both Jammu seats to the BJP. However, the Congress’s vote share saw a notable increase to 19 per cent, while the BJP’s vote share dipped to 24 per cent from 41 per cent in the previous Lok Sabha polls. The Congress-NC alliance led in 41 assembly segments with a vote share of 41 per cent.
The two parties aim to replicate this performance in the assembly polls. On the other hand, the BJP was ahead in 29 assembly segments out of the 36 assembly constituencies in the two Lok Sabha seats of Jammu and Udhampur. The party hopes to win maximum number of seats from its stronghold in Jammu to stake a claim to form the government.
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