Jammu and Kashmir: 9.46 percent registered voter turnout as of 9 am during the fifth phase of the District Development Court… https://t.co/7rR0ylmO4D
– ANI (@ANI) 1607579593000
Because the DDC surveys?
DDC elections are held in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time after the Center amended the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Raj Act of 1989, following the repeal of section 370 last year.
DDC: The composition
DDC works in conjunction with the District Planning Committee and the Block Development Council of each district. A council consists of fourteen members elected from the countryside and also from urbanized areas where required or approved by the Election Commission of India.
DDC is a form of local government elected from the territory of the union of Jammu and Kashmir. Its main objective is to elect members from rural and urban areas to the District Planning Committee and the council itself with fourteen members from each district for rapid development and economic improvement.
Results Dec 22
The DDC election takes place in eight phases and will continue until December 19. The vote count will take place on December 22.
Participation so far
The fourth phase of the DDC elections held in 34 constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday saw a turnout of more than 50 percent.
Previously, in the first phase of the DDC elections on November 28 there was a voter turnout of 51.76%, while in the second phase of the elections there was 48.62% on December 1 and the third phase of the DDC elections on December 4 recorded a 50.53% voter turnout.
Fifth phase: How many electoral districts?
A total of 37 DDC constituencies are voting for 58 vacant seats in the sarpanch and 218 in the panch in the fifth phase.
State Elections Commissioner KK Sharma has said there are 17 in the Kashmir division and 20 in the Jammu division.
In Kashmir’s 17 DDC electoral districts, there are 155 candidates in the fray, including 30 women, while in the Jammu division, 144 candidates, including 40 women, compete.
There are 125 sarpanch vacancies that have been notified in the fifth phase and of these 30 have been elected unopposed. There will be a contest in 58 electoral districts and 175 candidates, including 51 women, are in dispute.
Similarly, of the total 1,412 panch vacancies reported in this phase, 218 constituencies will stand for election with 527 candidates, including 137 candidates in the fray.
The electorate
In the fifth phase, he said, 827,519 voters are eligible to cast their votes and comprise 433,285 male and 394,234 female voters. Among them, 439,529 are from the Jammu division and 387,990 from the Kashmir division.
He said that a total of 2,104 polling stations have been established in UT for this phase, of which 914 are in the Jammu division and 1,190 in the Kashmir division. Of the total number of polling stations, 1,193 are hypersensitive, 472 are sensitive and 439 have been classified as normal.
Of the 2,104 polling stations, voting for sarpanch vacancies will take place at 271 polling stations and for panch vacancies at 229 polling stations.
In view of the Covid 19 pandemic, adequate arrangements have been put in place to ensure the safety of all stakeholders, including voters. Disinfectants, thermal scanners and face masks have been placed in polling stations to ensure that standard operating procedures issued by authorities are strictly followed.
Star contenders
Kashmir is undergoing a major political transition, with several established figures being humiliated during ongoing local elections, the first after New Delhi repealed Articles 370 and 35A. While the top congressional leader and former minister Taj Mohiuddin is in the electoral fray for Phase 5 of the DDC elections in Jammu and Kashmir, for which ballots will be cast on December 10, the fate of several former and former ministers MLA is in balance while Voting has already been completed for the first four phases.
Gujjar’s 72-year-old leader Taj Mohiuddin opposes People’s Conference (PC) activist Shaukat Ali Khan in his local district of Parenpillan Uri, near the LoC, in northern Kashmir.
Shaukat Ali Khan, supported by Farooq Abdullah’s Jammu and Kashmir (NC) National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti’s J&K People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is the consensus candidate of the ‘People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration’ (PAGD ). Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party (AP) has sent Choudhary Rafeeq Balot, another local Gujjar activist, who was once Taj’s right-hand man in the Congress party.
Known as the “crown” of the Congress Party, Taj has represented Uri as the MLA twice. He has served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah.
The fate of several star politicians in the J&K electoral arena has already been sealed by voters in Phase 3 and Phase 4 of voting.
Political stalwarts who tried their luck in Phase 3 of the poll include PPD leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig, wife, Safeena Baig, who is running as an independent candidate but interestingly continues as chair of the PPD women’s wing. .
Safeena Baig has faced off with North Carolina activist and PAGD candidate Shaeena Begum in the Wagora (Sangrama) Women’s Precinct in Baramulla District. Nasreen Firdaus, wife of assassinated PDP minister Dr. Ghulam Nabi Lone, and mother of former MLA Congress Shoib Lone (now in the Apni Party) is running as an AP candidate.
In the same constituency, a Kashmiri pandita woman, Babli Devi, is competing for the vacancy of a sarpanch.
Former North Carolina Minister Abdul Gani Malik is contesting the DDC’s choice of the Mahore constituency in Jammu’s Reasi district. The son of the main leader of Congress, Haji Buland Khan, former Minister Aijaz Khan, also participates from Thuroo in the same district. Having resigned from Congress, he now represents the Apni Party.
Shah Mohammad Tantray, a former PDP MLA in Jammu’s Poonch district, is running as an independent candidate for Loran in the same district. He faces stiff competition from former Riyaz Ahmad Naz, son of former MLA Choudhary Bashir Ahmad Naz.
Former Congressional Minister Shabir Khan is trying his luck from Manjakot in Rajouri, while former BJP Ministers Sham Choudhary, Choudhary Sukhnandan and Shakti Raj Parihar are contesting the DDC elections of Suchetgarh, Marh and Doda respectively.
Dr. Shahnaz Ganaie, former NC MLC, is now running as an independent candidate against Atiqa Begum, the mother of former NC MLA Aijaz Jan and the wife of Poonch’s former NC MLA Ghulam Mohammad Jan, in the reserved for – Mandi women’s constituency in Poonch district.
Former PDP and two-time MLA minister Choudhary Zulfikar, an influential Gujjar leader whose father, the late Chouhary Mohammad Hussain, had been returned to the Assembly five times on the NC list, has now joined the Apni Party. He has run his wife Zubaida as a AP candidate from Budhal Old-A in the Rajouri district of Jammu.
Interestingly, Zulfikar’s nephew Choudhary Javed Iqbal, brother of Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal, caused his wife Shazia Kousar to resign as a government school teacher in Jammu and turned her against Zulfikar’s wife. Javed was elected sarpanch in 2018 and chairman of the block development council in 2019.
Veteran congressional leader and former minister son of Mula Ram, Rajinder Kumar Happy, is trying his luck in his first election to the Marh constituency in Jammu district.
(With input from IANS)
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