Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday released the names of 29 more candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, bringing the total number of announced candidates to 45. This marks the region’s first election in a decade, following significant political changes.
Initially, on Monday, the BJP had unveiled a list of 44 candidates but promptly withdrew it. A few hours later, a revised list was issued, containing the names of only 15 candidates selected for the first phase of the election. Later the same day, an additional list was released, featuring just one candidate.
The latest list includes 10 candidates for the second phase of polling and 19 for the third phase. Notably, the BJP made a key change from the earlier withdrawn list by replacing Rohit Dubey with Baldev Raj Sharma as the candidate for the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat.
Prominent names in the newly announced list include Devender Singh Rana, who will contest from Nagrota, and Satish Sharma, who has been fielded from Billawar. The Billawar seat was previously represented by former deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh during the 2014 assembly elections.
However, the BJP has yet to announce candidates for the Nowshera and Gandhinagar seats. In the 2014 elections, Nowshera was represented by current state BJP president Ravinder Raina, while Gandhinagar was won by senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta.
Meanwhile, rival parties Congress and the National Conference (NC) have finalized a seat-sharing arrangement, with NC contesting 51 seats and Congress 32.
The election in Jammu and Kashmir, with its 90-member assembly, is set to take place over three phases between September 18 and October 1, with the vote count scheduled for October 4. This election is the first since the region’s assembly was dissolved in 2018 following the collapse of the coalition between the BJP and Mehbooba Mufti-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The political landscape in Jammu and Kashmir has been in flux since 2019 when the central government revoked the region’s special autonomy and reconstituted it as a Union Territory. This change led to a delay in holding the assembly elections, leaving the region without local-level lawmakers for several years.
