Srinagar; 26 Aug: The elections to the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases on September 18, 25 and October 1.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released its first list of 44 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
The candidates include 15 for the first phase of polls, 10 for the second phase and 19 for the third phase.
The elections to the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases on September 18, 25 and October 1. The counting of votes will take place on October 4.
The party has fielded Arshid Bhat to contest from Rajpora, Javed Ahmad Qadri from Shopian, Mohd. Rafiq Wani from Anantnag West, Adv. Syed Wazahat from Anantnag, Sushri Shagun Parihar from Kishtwar, and Gajay Singh Rana to contest from Doda.
The party has named Kuldeep Raj Dubey to contest from Reasi, Rohit Dubey to contest from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, and Chowdhary Abdul Ghani to contest from Poonch Haveli, Pawan Gupta to contest from Udhampur West, Dr. Devinder Kumar Maniyal to contest from Ramgarh (SC), and Mohan Lal Bhagat to contest from Akhnoor, among others.
The BJP’s Central Election Committee had met on Sunday evening to finalise the party’s candidates for the polls.
In the last assembly elections held in 2014, when Jammu and Kashmir was a full-fledged state, the BJP had won 25 seats. The party is making all-out efforts to fend off the challenge from a resurgent Congress, which has tied up with the National Conference.
In the Jammu and Kashmir polls, the BJP has made it clear that it will not ally with any political party and will support strong independent candidates on those assembly seats in Kashmir valley where the party will not contest the elections.
Of the total 90 assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, 74 are reserved for general, nine for Scheduled Tribes, and seven for Scheduled Castes. The Union Territory has 87.09 lakh eligible electorates with an equal percentage of males and females, according to the Election Commission.
