New Delhi: While the Abdullah family celebrated a significant victory in the J&K Assembly elections, other dynasties found themselves struggling to secure electoral support, painting a diverse picture of the election results.
The Mufti dynasty had its worst day, securing only three seats out of 90 Assembly constituencies. The loss of its newest family member in politics further underscored the historical significance of the poor performance.
When the last Assembly election was held in 2014, Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secured 28 seats. The party formed the government in Jammu and Kashmir in 2015 in an alliance with the BJP. The BJP, however, withdrew its support in 2018.
But in the October 8 verdict, the people gave a thumbs down to the party.
The PDP chief’s daughter, Iltija Mufti, lost her first Assembly polls from the Srigufwara-Bijbehara in South Kashmir, a seat that has been a PDP stronghold for the past few decades. Before delimitation, the Bijbehara Assembly seat was previously represented by Iltija Mufti’s grandfather and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and her mother Mehbooba Mufti. Losing the seat is a major blow to the Muftis.
If Mufti had had a terrible day, another dynasty managed to keep the show on.
Sajad Gani Lone of the Jammu & Kashmir People Conference won the Handwara seat, with a wafer-thin margin of just 622 votes. He secured 29,812 votes and his nearest rival Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan of the National Conference got 29,150 votes, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
However, he lost the Kupwara constituency by a significant margin of over 20,316 votes to PDP’s Mir Mohammad Fayaz. Lone, in fact, was third after Fayaz and NC’s Nasir Aslam Wani.
In the 2014 Assembly elections, Lone defeated NC’s Ramzan by over 5,000 votes in Handwara and subsequently served as a minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government under Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Sajad Lone’s father, Abdul Gani Lone, was a three-time winner of the seat in 1967, 1972, and 1977. His victories spanned different political eras, contesting two elections as a Congress candidate and a third as a Janata Party candidate.
The star of the day, however, was the Abdullah family.
Omar Abdullah won the Budgam and Ganderbal Assembly seats in Kashmir by big margins.
He defeated PDP’s Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi in Badgam with a margin of more than 18,485 votes.
The NC vice president polled 36,010 votes in Budgam, one of the two constituencies he contested in the Jammu and Kashmir elections this time.
In Ganderbal, he defeated PDP candidate Bashir Ahmad Mir by 10,574 votes. Omar Abdullah polled 32,727 votes here.
With this win, Omar Abdullah has reclaimed his electoral weight in the UT, especially in the valley. He lost the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla, which Engineer Rashid won.
Perceiving the win in the Assembly elections when the early trends came in, his father, NC chief and Lok Sabha member Farooq Abdullah, announced that his son would become the Chief Minister.
Omar Abdullah was the J&K CM from 2009 to 2015. His father, Farooq Abdullah and his grandfather, Sheikh Mohd Abdullah, were also the CMs.
The Abdullah family’s victory in the 2014 Assembly elections is a testament to their enduring influence in Kashmir politics, reaffirming their dynasty’s hold.
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Deepika Bhan –IANS
