Jammu, Apr 22 (PTI) Fearing humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir valley, the BJP did not dare to field a candidate for Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency, Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Vikar Rasool Wani said on Monday.
Wani, who is campaigning for his party candidate and former minister Raman Bhalla in Sunderbani-Kakakote areas of Rajouri border district, said the BJP will bite dust this time in the Jammu region too.
"The BJP was claiming to win the seat of Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha but failed to find and field a candidate, fearing humiliating defeat. They did not dare to field their candidate at all," Wani told a rally in Kalakote.
He questioned the BJP to disclose their stand in Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat and to tell their workers who to vote as they have landed in utter confusion due to the "escapist nature" of the party in these polls.
Asserting that the people want a change this time, he said, "The mood of the people indicated the coming events."
Bhalla exuded confidence about his victory and predicted the BJP's defeat in the Jammu region. He criticised the BJP for its policies, saying, "The people's power is bigger than anything in a democracy."
He urged the people to change the regime to save democracy and the Constitution.
The Congress candidate for Udhampur Lok Sabha seat, Lal Singh, condemned the BJP's policies by saying, "Time has come to show them the power of the poor people."
Singh accused the BJP of snatching the land, jobs, rights and bread and butter of the poor. He called for reclaiming the state and fighting against the BJP's "authoritarian policies". He urged the people to teach the BJP a lesson.
After the peaceful culmination of the first phase of polling in the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat on April 19, the focus has now shifted to the Jammu parliamentary constituency, which will go to polls in the second phase of elections on April 26.
A direct contest is on the cards between sitting BJP MP Jugal Kishore Sharma and INDIA bloc candidate and J-K Congress working president Bhalla, though there are 20 more candidates, including 12 independents, in the fray.
Jagdish Raj of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and advocate Ankur Sharma of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal are the two other prominent faces trying their luck from the constituency spread across Jammu, Samba, and Reasi and one segment of the Rajouri district.
A total of 17,80,738 voters — 9,21,053 men, 8,59,657 women and 28 third genders — are eligible to vote at 2,416 polling stations – 1,750 in rural and 666 in urban areas – set up in the constituency.