Srinagar. Voting will be held on Wednesday for 26 seats in the second phase in Jammu Kashmir. This also includes Ganderbal seat of National Conference leader and former Chief Minister of the state Omar Abdullah. Omar Abdullah’s fate is at stake on Ganderbal, the traditional seat of Abdullah family. Sheikh Aashiq of Engineer Rashid’s party, who defeated Omar on Baramulla Lok Sabha seat this year, and Bashir Ahmed Mir of PDP are challenging him. Omar is also contesting from Beerwah seat. Voting on 50 seats will be completed with the second phase. Voting will be held on 40 seats in the last phase on October 1. The results will be declared on October 8.
In the second phase, voting will be held on 26 assembly seats in six districts on Wednesday, September 24. 25.78 lakh voters will be able to cast their votes in this. In the second phase, 15 seats are from Central Kashmir and 11 seats are from Jammu. In this phase, 239 candidates are in the fray, out of which only six are women and 233 are men. Earlier, on September 18, voting was held for 24 assembly seats in seven districts in the first phase. During this, 61.38 percent voting took place.
In the second phase, Srinagar has the maximum eight seats and Ganderbal district has the minimum two seats. Apart from these, votes will be cast on five seats each in Budgam and Rajouri and three seats each in Reasi and Poonch. Srinagar division includes Ganderbal, Srinagar, Budgam and Jammu division includes Reasi, Rajouri and Poonch. According to the Election Commission, the maximum number of 16 candidates are in the fray on Srinagar’s Habba Kadal seat. At the same time, there is a contest between four candidates in Rajouri’s Budhal. People’s Democratic Party is contesting on all 26 seats in this phase. National Conference, which is contesting in alliance, has fielded candidates on 20 seats while Congress has fielded candidates on six seats. BJP has 17 and 98 independent candidates are in the fray.