BJP on Tuesday released its third list of 29 candidates for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. According to this, Devinder Singh Rana has been given ticket from Nagrota seat. Gulabgarh is a reserved seat for ST. BJP has fielded Mohammad Akram Chaudhary from here. Ashok Bhatt will contest from Habbakadal seat. With this, the saffron party has so far announced candidates for 45 seats. It is known that Satish Sharma has been made the candidate from Billawar assembly seat. Billawar was represented by former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in the last assembly elections held in 2014.
The BJP has made one change in the list released on Monday. It has fielded Baldev Raj Sharma in place of Rohit Dubey from the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat. There is no change in the rest of the candidates. The BJP’s latest list has 10 candidates for the second phase of elections and 19 for the third phase. The BJP has not yet fielded any candidate for Nowshera, which was represented by its current state president Ravinder Raina in 2014. It has also not fielded any candidate from Gandhinagar, from where its senior leader and former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta was elected in the last election.
Names of 15 candidates in the first list
BJP on Monday announced the names of 16 candidates for the first phase of Jammu and Kashmir elections. In the first phase, voting will be held on September 18 in 16 assembly constituencies of South Kashmir and 8 assembly constituencies of Jammu region. The first list released by the party has the names of 15 candidates, while the second list released shortly after this announced the name of only 1 candidate.
Earlier, the party had released a list of 44 candidates for all three phases, including 10 for the second phase and 19 for the third phase. However, later the list of candidates released for the second and third phases was withdrawn and then the first list of 15 candidates was released for the first phase only.
Voting dates for Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections
Assembly elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir in three phases. Voting for the 90-member assembly of the erstwhile state will be held on September 18 under the first phase, September 25 under the second phase and October 1 under the third and final phase. Counting of votes will be held on October 4. The process of filing nominations for the second and third phases will begin on August 29 and September 5 respectively. This assembly election will set the stage for the people of the Union Territory to elect a government after the abolition of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019. In the last assembly elections held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014, the BJP had won 25 seats. It was a full state then. The party is facing a challenge from the Congress here. The Congress has formed an alliance with the National Conference, especially in the Jammu region. This region has been a stronghold of the BJP since 2014.
