Srinagar, one of the three seats in the Kashmir Valley in the Union Territory of J&K, will go to polls in the fourth phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where voting will take place on Monday, May 13, 2024. It is one of the 96 constituencies to be elected.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be the first general election in the former state since Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated by the centrist-controlled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in August 2019. With this abolition, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status. The government also downgraded the erstwhile state into two union territories, J&K and Ladakh.
The remaining two seats in Kashmir Valley, Baramulla and Anantnag Rajouri, will go to polls in the next two Lok Sabha polls.
north carolina bastion
Established in 1962, the Srinagar Assembly spans five constituencies – Srinagar, Budgam, Ganderbal, Pulwama and Shopian, divided into 21 parliamentary segments and has over 17.4 million voters.
Srinagar is the stronghold of the Jammu and Kashmir National Congress (JKNC), a region which has won 10 of the 13 elections held to win seats so far. He is the satrap of Party leader and former prime minister Farooq Abdullah won the seat in 2019. Before Farooq, his son Omar Abdullah and his mother Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah also represented the seat.
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Congress is the only national party to have won a seat in Srinagar so far. Ghulam Mohammad Mir Magami of the Nationalist Congress Party was elected from Srinagar in 1996. Over the years, other political parties also began building roads within their seats. In 2014, he lost the seat to Tariq Hameed Kara of the JK Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This voting season saw lively election campaigning in Srinagar, even in the old city, for the first time in decades. Voter turnout is expected to be even higher this time, as there were no calls for a boycott. . The seat had a turnout of 14.4% in 2019.
three-way battle
In 2024, the NC faces a battle with candidates from the PDP and Apni Party to retain the seat.
North Carolina removed former Cabinet minister and Shiite cleric Agha Ruhura from her seat. Mr. Ruhra, who also enjoys support from the Congress and the Awami National Conference, has been a vocal critic of the abrogation of Article 370. In fact, his campaign has focused on restoring the dignity of people lost with the abrogation of Article 370. In 2019.
Also read: Kashmir News: “My concern is the restoration of the dignity taken away by Article 370” NC Srinagar candidate Agha Ruhra
The PDP, led by Mehbooba Mufti, removed its youth wing president Waheed Para from the seat. Parra’s campaign has focused on his three years in prison after his arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2020 in two terror cases.
JK Apni Party (AP), led by former education minister Altaf Bukhari, has fielded former minister Mohammad Ashraf Mir in the Srinagar seat. The AP candidate is backed by the JK People’s Congress (PC) led by Sajjad Lone.
The BJP is not in the fray.
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not field candidates for three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir.
The NC and PDP have called the AP and PC “proxies” of the BJP. North Carolina Vice President Omar Abdullah is a candidate from Baramulla while PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti is a candidate from Anantnag Rajouri seat.
Also read: Kashmir News: In the first Lok Sabha elections after the abrogation of Article 370, the BJP is out of contention in three seats in the Valley. 5 points
The NC and PDP, both Indian bloc partners, have decided to contest elections separately for three seats in Kashmir. However, both the parties supported Congress candidates in both the seats in Jammu. The BJP’s decision to skip the election campaign in Kashmir came after the NC and PDP decided to contest the elections separately.
elaborate arrangement
Around 2,135 polling stations have been set up in Srinagar seat. Of these, 1,650 are critical and require careful security arrangements. Of his five districts in the assembly, the Srinagar region has 925 polling stations, of which 873 are classified as important polling stations.
Officials told local newspapers that strict security measures were in place to ensure a smooth election, including increased surveillance and the deployment of additional troops.
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