Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is also the PDP president, faces a contest from seven candidates, including five Independents, in the byelection to south Kashmir’s Anantnag Assembly seat which will be her party’s first major test of popularity since forging an alliance with the BJP.
The bypoll for Anantnag, the Assembly seat formerly represented by Mehbooba’s father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed which became vacant following his death in January this year, is scheduled to take place on June 22.
The date for withdrawal of candidature closed on Saturday, leaving eight candidates in competition for the seat. Engineer Abdul Rashid Sheikh, a legislator from north Kashmir’s Langate constituency, had also filed his nomination to contest from Anantnag but withdrew his papers on the last day for withdrawal of candidature, according to the Returning Officer.
The main contest in Anantnag remains between Mehbooba, National Conference leader Iftikhar Hussain Misger and Congress candidate Hilal Ahmad Shah, who was the runner-up for the seat in 2014.
The five Independents contesting in the bypoll include little-known names: Tejinder Singh, Manzoor Ahmad Khan, Masroor Ahmad Mir, Mujieb-ur-Rehman and Mushtaq Ahmad Shah.
The bypoll will be the first major test for the PDP since it forged an alliance with the BJP in March last year and formed a coalition government in the state for the second time since its formation in 1999. Mehbooba, a parliamentarian who took oath as the head of PDP-BJP government earlier this year, had termed the alliance with the BJP as her father’s “courageous, although unpopular, decision”.
In the last election held in Anantnag in December 2014, 83,574 voters were registered in the constituency and 4,012 were registered as migrant voters. The constituency had registered a polling percentage of 39.71 with 33,200 votes polled, out of which Mufti Sayeed had bagged 16,983 votes.
In the past 11 elections held since 1957, the constituency has been six times represented by the National Conference, two times by the Congress and once by an Independent candidate affiliated to the separatist Muslim United Front.
The past two elections, held in 2008 and 2014, were won by PDP founder and Mehbooba’s father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, while the winner of the 2002 election, Mirza Mehboob Beigh, who was then with the National Conference, is now with the PDP.
NC & Cong key opponents to Mehbooba for Anantnag Bypoll
