On Wednesday, the first round of the three-phase assembly election 2024 will take place in Jammu and Kashmir, where voters will be casting ballots for the first time in ten years.
The outcome of 219 candidates, including 90 independents, vying for 24 assembly constituencies—eight in three districts in the Jammu area and sixteen in four districts in the Kashmir valley—will be decided by more than 23 lakh voters, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
With the help of the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF), Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police, and Jammu and Kashmir Police, the government has put in place multi-tier security measures.
In Jammu and Kashmir, this is the first assembly election following the repeal of Article 370 in August 2019. To supervise the procedure at 3,276 polling places today, the ECI has sent out 14,000 poll workers.
Up to 1.23 lakh young people between the ages of 18 and 19, 28,309 people with disabilities (PwDs), and 15,774 senior voters over the age of 85 are eligible to cast ballots in phase 1.
Prominent Kashmiri candidates in phase one include Ghulam Ahmad Mir of the Congress, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami of the CPI (M), and Iltija Mufti of the PDP.
In Banihal, Bhaderwah, and Doda, the NC and Congress have fielded independent candidates despite their alliance. Rakesh Goswami and Suraj Singh Parihar, two BJP rebels, are running separately from Ramban and Padder-Nagseni, while rebel leader of the NC, Pyare Lal Sharma, is running from Inderwal.
Sajjad Kitchloo (NC), Vikar Rasool Wani (Congress), Sunil Sharma (BJP), and Ghulam Mohammad Saroori (independent) are prominent candidates in the Jammu region.
Each of the 2,974 rural and 302 urban polling places is manned by four election officials, one of whom is the presiding officer.
In Jammu and Kashmir, more than 35,000 Pandits from Kashmir are expected to cast ballots in the first round of elections. In order to enhance voter participation in the polls, ECI announced that it has streamlined the paperwork for those who moved from Kashmir to Jammu and Udhampur in the 1990s.
Since June 2018, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) severed its ties with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), prompting Mehbooba Mufti to step down as chief minister, Jammu and Kashmir has been without an elected administration.
There are nine scheduled tribes, seven scheduled castes, and 74 reserved assembly constituencies out of the 90 total in Jammu and Kashmir.
In Pulwama, Waheed Para, an accused in a terror case, faces a tough challenge from his former party colleague Mohammad Khalil Bandh, who is now running on the NC ticket.
