Jammu and Kashmir National Conference leader Omar Abdullah won both Budgam and Ganderbal seats in the Kashmir region on Tuesday. The former Chief Minister was testing his electoral fate for the second time in a year after his unsuccessful run from the Baramulla parliamentary constituency during the Lok Sabha elections. Omar had lost to Awami Ittehad Party chief Sheikh Abdul Rashid alias Engineer Rashid.
In Budgam, Omar secured 36,010 votes defeating PDP's Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi with a margin of 18,485 votes. In Ganderbal, the former CM won 32,727 votes defeating Bashir Ahmed Mir from the People's Democratic Party with a vote margin of 10,574.
The NC gained a comfortable lead in the early trends by the Election Commission of India as the counting began at 8 am. As the results started to roll in, party chief Farooq Abdullah announced that his son, Omar will be the next Chief Minister of Jammu and Kahmir.
The NC and PDP traded charges in the run-up to the Jammu and Kashmir elections and the results. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti had alleged that "money was being distributed to buy votes in Budgam and Ganderbal", an allegation for which Omar welcomed an investigation.
Ahead of the second phase of polls on September 25, PDP chief Mehbobba Mufti said: "[We] Urge to impress upon police and local administration to stop these electoral malpractices. We’ve seen how the brazen rigging of the 1987 election plunged J&K into turmoil."
Responding to the allegation, Omar said: "I can't help it if their [PDP] candidates were not able to make the desired impact. It's not my fault that people withdrew from poll campaigns in my favour. PDP was very happy to get Apni Party's support in Budgam until Mohiudin Muntazir went against his party and supported me. After that, PDP got upset and started attacking NC and Apni Party."
In the 2014 polls, the Ganderbal seat was won by JKNC's Ishfaq Ahmad Sheikh who defeated PDP's Qazi Mohammad Afzal by a slim margin of 597 votes.
In Ganderbal, NC's Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi bagged the seat garnering 30090 votes. Mehdi defeated Gh Mohi-ud-din Bhat (Muntazir) with a vote margin of 2,787 votes.