Jammu Kashmir Assembly Election 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released a fresh list with names of 15 candidates for the first phase of the election. The new list came hours after the saffron party deleted its first list of 44 candidates for the three-phase of the Jammu and Kashmir elections. No changes were made in the candidates picked for the first phase.
BJP has fielded Vir Saraf-- a Kashmiri Pandit -- from Anantnag East-Shangus in Kashmir Valley, a move seen as a significant outreach to the Pandit community. The party has also fielded one woman candidate, Shagun Parihar, from Kishtwar.
BJP List For Phase 1 Of Jammu Kashmir Assembly Election
| Name | Constituency |
|---|---|
| Er. Syed Showkat Gayoor Andrabi | Pampore |
| Arshid Bhat | Rajpora |
| Javed Ahmad Qadri | Shopian |
| Mohd. Rafiq Wani | Anantnag West |
| Advocate Syed Wazahat | Anantnag |
| Sofi Yousuf | Srigufwara–Bijbehara |
| Veer Saraf | Shangus–Anantnag East |
| Tariq Keen | Inderwal |
| Shagun Parihar | Kishtwar |
| Sunil Sharma | Padder–Nagseni |
| Daleep Singh Parihar | Bhadarwah |
| Gajay Singh Rana | Doda |
| Shakti Raj Parihar | Doda West |
| Rakesh Thakur | Ramban |
| Salim Bhat | Banihal |
After the list was released, party workers created a ruckus in the BJP office in Jammu. As per sources, workers are angry over the candidate list. They claimed 'parachuted leaders' were given tickets without considering the party workers.
The absence of many big names from the BJP’s first list also took many by surprise The heavyweights who didn’t find mention in the now-deleted list included J&K BJP president Ravindra Raina, former Deputy Chief Ministers Kavinder Gupta and Nirmal Singh.
The BJP's Central Election Committee met on Sunday evening to finalise the party's candidates for the polls. Elections to the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly will be held in three phases -- September 18, September 25, and October 1. The results will be declared on October 4.
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This will be the first Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir after the erstwhile state was bifurcated into two Union Territories in 2019 and lost its special status in 2019. In the last legislative polls held in the erstwhile state in 2014, BJP had won 25 seats and PDP then tied up to form the government.
The party is making all-out efforts to fend off the challenge from a resurgent Congress, which has tied up with the National Conference, especially in the Jammu region, a BJP bastion since 2014.