Srinagar. The campaign work for the three-phase assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir has ended. Campaigning for the third and final phase of voting ended on Sunday. In the third phase, voting will be held on 40 seats on Tuesday. Before this, voting has taken place on 50 seats in two phases. Counting of votes will take place on October 8. In the third and last phase, BJP and Congress as well as all the regional parties put in their full strength. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah took charge from the BJP side, Mallikarjun Kharge along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also campaigned from the Congress side.
In the election campaign, BJP targeted Congress, National Conference and PDP on the issue of terrorism and nepotism. On the other hand, Congress and National Conference attacked BJP on issues like unemployment, inflation, Darbar move and snatching of statehood from Jammu and Kashmir. Both parties promised to restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
In the third phase, voting is to be held on 24 seats of Jammu, Samba, Kathua and Udhampur in Jammu division and 16 seats of Baramulla, Budgam and Kupwara in Kashmir division on October 1. To win the elections on these seats, on the last day of the election campaign, BJP and Congress candidates conducted road shows and rallies of big leaders were held. BJP campaigned very vigorously in this phase because most of the seats are from Jammu division, where BJP has a strong base and had won more seats in the last elections.
If we talk about Jammu division, there are 12 seats in Jammu, three in Samba, five in Kathua and four in Udhampur. BJP was dominating these seats in the last elections. But this time BJP is facing tough challenge from Congress and some independent candidates on many seats. In this phase, the fate of 415 candidates including Congress leaders and former Deputy Chief Ministers of the state Tara Chand and Muzaffar Baig is at stake. Engineer Rashid’s brother, who won the Lok Sabha elections as an independent from Baramulla seat, is also in the fray from Langate seat.
However, the voting percentage in the first two phases was quite good. In the first phase on September 18, there was 61.38 percent voting on 24 seats and in the second phase on September 26, there was 57.31 percent voting on 26 seats. This is the first assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019. The results of the elections will be declared on October 8.