The People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) swept the inaugural District Development Council (DDC) polls by winning 110 seats, while the BJP emerged as the largest party with 74 seats after securing the largest turnout. of votes in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. on Wednesday. Results are still awaited from four constituencies, one each in Bandipora and Kupwara districts of northern Kashmir and Poonch and Rajouri districts in the Jammu region.
The counting of votes for the DDC’s 280 electoral districts, 14 each in 20 districts, began Tuesday morning after the peaceful completion of the eight-phase elections from November 28 to December 19. This was the first democratic exercise in Jammu and Kashmir after the repeal of Article 370 and bifurcation of the old state into two union territories last year. Of the 276 seats whose results have been declared by the J&K Electoral Commission so far, in addition to PAGD and BJP, the independent candidates have won 49, Congress 26, Apni Party 12, PDF and National Panthers Party two each and the BSP one.
Two citizens of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), who are married to former militants, are among the contestants from the Dragmulla constituency in Kupwara and Hajin-A in Bandipora and the state Elections Commissioner has ordered the scrutineers stakeholders to defer the vote count in the two constituencies until further orders, officials said. In the Darhal constituency of the Rajouri district, Mohammad Iqbal Malik of the BJP is leading over Parvez Rashid of the National Conference by more than 1,000 votes when the count was ongoing.
So far, the PAGD had won six seats, Congress three, and the BJP two, while one seat each had gone to the Apni Party and an independent candidate in the district. The final result is also expected from the Balakote constituency in Poonch, where independent candidate Massarat Jabin leads her PDP rival Afshan Aftab by a margin of 787 votes. Congress had won four seats, two seats went to the National Conference, while seven independents have registered their district victory so far.
Among PAGD members, the National Conference won the largest number of 67 seats, followed by PDP (27), Popular Conference (eight), CPI (M) five and J&K Peoples Movement (three), obtaining a total participation of more than 3.94 lakh. vote together. The BJP, on the other hand, won 74 seats, including three in Kashmir after garnering a total of 4.87 lakh votes. However, it only managed to obtain a clear majority in six districts of Jammu, Kathua, Udhampur, Samba, Doda and Reasi, all in the Jammu region.
The PAGD put on a good show in the Kishtwar and Ramban districts of the Pir Panchal and Chenab valley, as well as their National Conference candidate winning one seat each in the Jammu and Samba districts. Congress obtained a total of more than 1.39 votes, while independents obtained 1.71 lakhs of votes.
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