SRINAGAR: The BJP, which made a determined bid to score its first poll victory in the Kashmir Valley, not only drew a blank but suffered the ignominy of seeing all but one of its 34 candidates lose their security deposits.
The BJP had fielded candidates in 34 of the 46 constituencies in the Valley in the keenly fought Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir results of which were declared today.
Moti Koul, BJP’s candidate from Habba Kadal in Srinagar district, was the only one who managed to save his deposit by polling 2,596 votes in the constituency which recorded only 21 per cent voter turnout.
Koul was also under the threat of losing his security deposit till the migrant votes were counted, which propelled him from seventh position to the runners-up.
He lost to Shamima Firdous of National Conference by a margin of over 2,000 votes.
The remaining BJP candidates were way behind in most of the constituencies in the Valley, Election Commission data showed.
A candidate loses his deposit on polling less than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency.
BJP’s Shopian candidate Javed Ahmad Qadri managed to get over 3,300 votes but lost the security deposit due to the higher voter turnout in the constituency in south Kashmir.
Masood-ul-Hassan, fighting from Hazratbal constituency, polled 2,635 votes but he too could not save his deposit.
Prominent BJP nominees who got over 1,000 votes were Hina Shafi Bhat from Amira Kadal(1,359), Zubair Ahmad Wani from Batmaloo (1,304) and Dharakshan Indrabi from Sonawar (1,100) in terms of number of votes polled.
Hina, who had sparked a controversy by allegedly slapping an election officer during polling, got 1,359 votes out of the total of more than 20,000 votes polled. Daughter of former NC MP and MLA Mohammad Shafi Bhat, Hina had denied the assault charge.
The doctor-turned-politician was banking upon her father’s clout and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s only election rally in Kashmir to sail through but came up against PDP’s Altaf Bukhari, the eventual winner, and National Conference’s incumbent MLA Nasir Aslam Wani.
Neelam Gash in Zadibal segment got just 360 votes.
Darakshan Andrabi, who was contesting against Chief MInister Omar Abdullah from Sonawar constituency in Srinagar, managed to get 1,100 votes but the story was no different for her too as PDP’s Mohammad Ashraf Mir ran away with the seat.
270 independents lose
Over 270 independent candidates lost Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and only three of them could secure their seats.
As many as 274 independents were among 931 candidates who contested the Assembly polls. Of these only three could win, according to Election Commission.
Those who won include Abdul Rashid Sheikh from Langate, Pawan Kumar Gupta (Udhampur) and Syed Mohammad Baqir Rizvi from Zanskar constituency. Sheikh won by 2,505 votes by defeating PDP’s Ghulam Nabi Ganai, who got support from 15,667 electorates, it said.
Whereas, Gupta secured 36,226 votes, 14,650 more than PDP’s Balwant Singh Mankotia in Udhampur constituency. In Zanskar, Rizvi won by a margin of 566 votes. He defeated Congress Ghulam Raza, who got 6,197 votes, the EC said.
Independent candidates got a total of 3,29,881 votes or 6.8 per cent of the total votes polled in the state.
In 2008 Assembly polls, four out of 481 independent candidates had won.
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