JAMMU, Aug 30: Four candidates of Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) including former Advocate General Aslam Goni withdrew their nominations on last day of withdrawals of candidatures for eight seats of Jammu division going to polls in Phase-I of Assembly elections on September 18. A BSP candidate also retired from the contest but three rebels – two from BJP and one from NC – stayed in the race.
A total of 20 candidates, seven each from Doda and Kishtwar and six in Ramban district, opted out of the electoral fray today, the last day for withdrawal of nomination papers.
For all 24 seats of the UT going to polls in Phase-I, 219 candidates were left in the contest.
Following an appeal by DPAP chairman and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad a day before to his party candidates that they can withdraw from the electoral fray if they wish so as he will not be able to campaign for them because of ill health, four candidates of his party took back their nominations in three districts of Doda region including his hometown of Bhaderwah.
Abdul Mujeed Wani, who won Doda seat for two consecutive terms in 2002 and 2008 elections and had filed his nomination papers once again from the same constituency as the DPAP candidate and Abdul Ghani, the DPAP nominee from Doda West, were the only two candidates of Ghulam Nabi Azad’s party who stayed in the fray.
DPAP candidates who withdrew their papers today include Mohammad Aslam Goni (Bhaderwah), Fatima Begum (Inderwal), Girdhari Lal Bhau (Ramban) and Dr Asif Ahmed Khanday (Banihal).
Azad’s party had not put up candidates in Kishtwar and Paddar-Nagseni Assembly constituencies of Kishtwar district.
Besides DPAP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Arshad Mutain Kitchloo from Paddar-Nagseni Assembly constituency of Kishtwar district also withdrew from the contest.
Rest of the candidates in all eight seats of the Doda region who opted out of the election race were either covering candidates of political parties or Independents.
After last date of withdrawal of nominations, 64 candidates were left in fray for eight seats of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts. They include 27 in Doda district, 22 in Kishtwar district and 15 in Ramban district.
Kishtwar Assembly segment is expected to witness triangular contest among Sajjad Kitchloo (NC), Shagun Parihar (BJP) and Firdous Tak (PDP). Kitchloo won the seat in 2002 and 2008 but lost to BJP’s Sunil Sharma in 2014. After delimitation, Sharma has shifted to newly created seat of Paddar-Nagseni while the BJP has fielded martyrs Ajit Parihar and Anil Parihar’s kin 29-year-old Shagun Parihar from Kishtwar.
Kitchloo is trying to regain the lost seat while the BJP is determined to retain it.
At Paddar-Nagseni, however, a direct contest is on cards between Sunil Sharma and NC’s Pooja Thakur, the sitting chairperson of District Development Council (DDC) Kishtwar though the PDP has also fielded Sandesh Kumar. Rakesh Goswami, a BJP rebel is also in the fray and he refused to withdraw on last date of filing of nomination papers.
The contest, however, is expected to be multi-cornered in Inderwal, the third seat of Kishtwar district where three-time MLA and former Minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori is contesting the election as an Independent candidate after being denied the mandate by Azad’s DPAP, a party which he joined after resigning from the Congress along with Azad.
He is facing Sheikh Zafarullah of Congress, Tariq Hussain Keen (BJP), Nasir Ahmed Sheikh (PDP) and National Conference rebel Pyare Lal Sharma. Sharma stayed in the fray as deadline for withdrawal ended this evening.
Saroori won Inderwal seat for three consecutive terms in 2002, 2008 and 2014 elections wresting it from the NC which bagged it in 1996.
As per NC-Congress seat sharing agreement, Kishtwar and Paddar-Nagseni seats have gone to the NC and Inderwal to the Congress.
In Bhaderwah seat of Doda district, following withdrawal of nomination papers by former Advocate General and DPAP candidate Mohammad Aslam Goni, the contest is expected to be triangular among 2014 BJP MLA Daleep Singh Parihar, Nadeem Sharief (Congress) and Sheikh Mehboob Iqbal (NC) though Vikram Rathore of Jammu Kashmir Apni Party and Meenakshi Bhagat of BSP are also in the fray.
Nadeem Sharief is son of Mohammad Sharief Niaz, who won Bhaderwah seat in 2002 for the Congress and was made the Cabinet Minister. However, after Ghulam Nabi Azad became the Chief Minister in 2005 after half of the term of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the CM, Niaz quit the seat and Azad won it in the by-poll. NC’s Mehboob Iqbal is retired IAS officer. Sheikh Abdul Rehman won Bhaderwah seat in 1996 as BSP candidate.
BJP’s 2014 MLA and former Minister Shakti Raj Parihar is facing Pardeep Kumar (Congress), Tanveer Hussain (PDP) and Abdul Ghani (DPAP) among others in the multi-cornered contest from newly created seat of Doda West. DDC member and Advocate Syed Aasim Hasmi, who had defeated Shakti Parihar in the DDC elections in 2020 and had filed nomination papers from Doda West seat, today withdrew his nomination papers.
Doda Assembly segment also is facing multi-cornered contest with two former Ministers Khalid Najib Suhrawardhy (NC) and Abdul Mujeed Wani (DPAP) in the fray along with Gajay Singh Rana (BJP), Riaz Ahmed (Congress) and the PDP.
Suhrawardhy won the seat in by-election after the death of his father and NC strong man Attaullah Suhrawardhy. However, he failed to retain it in 2002 when Majid Wani won the seat as an Independent candidate and in 2008 as the Congress candidate. BJP’s Shakti Parihar wrested the seat in 2014.
Parihar this time has shifted to newly created seat of Doda West. He had lost the District Development Council election from two seats in Doda in 2020.
In Ramban district, eight candidates are now left in the fray but the main contest is expected to be among Rakesh Singh Thakur (BJP), Arjun Singh Raju (NC) and Suraj Singh Parihar, a BJP rebel contesting the election as an Independent candidate.
Banihal constituency in Ramban district is also expected to witness four-cornered contest among Vikar Rasool Wani, a two-time MLA of Congress, Sajjad Shaheen (National Conference), Mohammad Saleem Bhat (BJP) and Imtiyaz Shan (PDP).
While in Ramban, the seat had gone to NC under NC-Congress alliance, there has been friendly fight between the two parties in Banihal.