BJP, NC get 3 seats each in J-K, Mehbooba's PDP routed

Jammu: The BJP and the National Conference have won three Lok Sabha seats each in Jammu and Kashmir, leaving Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP stunned as it could not open its account.

National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah and Union minister Jitendra Singh were among the prominent faces to make it to the 17th Lok Sabha from the state which sends six MPs to the Lower House.

The seat has been won by NC candidate and former high court judge Hasnain Masoodi whose nearest rival was Ghulam Ahmad Mir of the Congress.

Masoodi polled 40,180 votes, Mir 33,504 and Mufti got 30,524 votes, according to the Election Commission.

In the Udhampur seat of Jammu region, BJP’s Jitendra Singh won by 3.57 lakh votes defeating Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh, the son of Jammu and Kashmir’s last prince Karan Singh.

It is the highest margin of victory for any successful candidate in J&K till now.Singh got 61.38 per cent votes, as per officials.

He had defeated former Union minister and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in 2014.

BJP’s Jugal Kishore defeated Raman Bhalla of the Congress by 3,02,875 votes on the Jammu seat.

The party’s J T Namgyal won the Ladakh seat defeating Independent candidate and journalist-turned-politician Sajjad Hussain by over 10,000 votes.

For the NC, 83-year-old Abdullah got 1,06,750 votes and defeated Aga Syed Mohsin of the PDP by 70,050 votes in the Srinagar constituency, which has a total electorate of 12,94,560.

This will be Abdullah’s fourth term in the Lok Sabha, having been a member in 1980, 2009 and 2017 previously.

The Congress drew a blank in the state even though the NC and the PDP had not fielded candidates for Jammu and Udhampur seats in order to consolidate anti-BJP vote.

In north Kashmir’s Baramulla constituency, NC candidate Mohammad Akbar Lone won the seat by defeating Peoples Conference’s Raja Aijaz Ali by 30233 votes.

Lone polled 1,33,426 votes followed by Raja with 1,03,193 votes and Independent candidate Engineer Rasheed bagged 1,02,168 votes. PDP and Congress finished fourth and fifth.

In 2014, the BJP had won three seats — two in the Jammu reagin and the Ladakh seat — while the PDP had swept all three seats in the Valley.

However, Abdullah had won the Lok Sabha bypoll to the Srinagar seat in 2017.