NEW DELHI: The much anticipated Jammu and Kashmir election has finally ended and its result didn’t surprise anyone as it aligned with exit polls predictions.
The National Conference won the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election with 42 seats and the Congress bagged 6. Both the parties’ coalition crossed the majority mark and will form the government soon in the Union Territory.Meanwhile, the BJP won 29 and PDP bagged only 3 seats.
In this election, 7 independent candidates won the seats with Satesh Sharma, who left the Congress and contested as an independent from the Chhamb seat of Jammu region, winning the election by defeating BJP candidate Rajeev Sharma with a margin of 6,929 votes.
Highest margin
In the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, BJP candidate Devender Rana emerged victorious from the Nagrota segment with the highest margin of 30,472 votes, while PDP’s Rafiq Ahmad Naik secured the Tral seat with the lowest victory margin of just 460 votes.
Rana, who had previously won the 2014 assembly elections on the National Conference (NC) ticket, retained his seat by defeating NC’s Joginder Singh, who received 17,641 votes.
AICC general secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir also secured a significant victory with a margin of 29,728 votes, closely followed by another NC defector to BJP, Surjit Singh Slathia, who won the Samba seat by a margin of 29,481 votes. The BJP had five other candidates who won their respective seats with a margin of more than 20,000 votes.
The NC, which emerged as the single largest party with 42 seats in the 90-member J&K assembly, had only two candidates who won with a margin of more than 20,000 votes. Irshad Rasool Kar secured the Sopore assembly segment by a margin of 20,356 votes, while Aijaz Ahmad Jan won the Poonch-Haveli seat by a margin of 20,879 votes.
Lowest margin
In the Tral assembly seat, PDP’s Naik emerged victorious in a multi-corner contest with a slender margin of just 460 votes.
The BJP’s Kishtwar candidate Shagun Parihar won with a slightly higher margin of 521 votes, defeating NC candidate Sajad Kitchloo. Five other candidates, including People’s Conference president Sajad Gani Lone, won their seats with a margin of less than 1,000 votes.
NC’s Javaid Riyaz defeated People’s Conference candidate Imran Ansari by a margin of just 603 votes, while Independent candidate Pyare Lal Sharma emerged victorious against former minister G M Saroori by 643 votes in a quadrangular contest.
Sharma polled 14,195 votes, followed by Saroori (13,552), Congress’ Mohammad Zafarullah (12,533) and BJP’s Tariq Hussain Keen (9,550). Sajad Gani Lone managed to retain his family stronghold of Handwara by a narrow margin of 662 votes.
