BJP’s 4 among 8 in fray for LC polls

DEEPAK KHAJURIA

JAMMU: Eight candidates today filed nomination papers for six vacant seats of the Legislative Council for which elections will be held on April 17.
Four of the eight candidates are from Bhartiya Janta Party, its ruling ally Peoples Democratic Party has fielded only two on the safe seats, while one each from Congress and National Conference.
While the BJP has fielded one candidate on unsafe seat from Jammu region –Vikram Randhawa –where intense contest is expected, the filing of nomination paper by Ashok Kumar Bhatt was a surprise as BJP has earlier fielded Ajay Bharti, who also filed his papers today. Bharti is an employee of the Agriculture University and Bhat was fielded fearing that Bharti may not get clearance at short notice. However, sources said that later in the day Bharti, whose real name is Girdhari Lal Raina, got the clearance.
Eight candidates including ruling People Democratic Party (PDP), Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and opposition National Conference (NC) and Indian National Congress (INC) today filed their nomination papers for Legislative Council elections. The candidates filed the nominations before Assembly Secretary, Mohammad Ramzan who is also Returning Officer for the elections.
The PDP candidates namely Abdul Qayoom Dar (Jammu Province) and Yasir Reshi (Kashmir Province) filed their nominations in presence of party leaders including sitting Ministers and Legislators.
Whereas, BJP candidates including Vikram Randhawa (Jammu Province) Pradeep Sharma, (District Poonch), Girdhari Lal Raina and Ashok Kumar Bhat (Kashmir Province) filed their nomination papers in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister and other Ministers and Legislators.
The candidates of NC and INC including Aga Syed Mehmood (Kashmir Province) and Thakur Balbir Singh (Jammu Province) also filed their nomination papers in presence of the party leaders.
Earlier, Balbir Singh former MLA from Billawar, was declared as the candidate for the legislative council election by the AICC yesterday. He will be candidate of joint opposition led by Congress-NC against the two seats in Jammu province, while another seat in Kashmir province has been allotted to the National conference, which has also fielded its Candidate Aga Syed Mehmood today in the presence of Senior Congress leaders. Both the candidates of Congress and NC filed their nomination papers at the same time.
NC general secretary, Ali Mohammad Sagar said that party’s has only fielded one candidate and that is from Kashmir seat and NC is supporting Congress on Jammu seat and vice-versa.
Whereas, Congress, state chief spokesperson, Ravinder Sharma informed that Congress is contesting the MLC elections in coalition with NC and the opposition coalition will win both the seats.
“We are also hopeful that all Independent MLAs will support opposition’s coalition candidates,” added Sagar.
Though NC-Congress coalition is confident that they will win both the seats and this is the reason that they have fielded one candidate each for Kashmir as well as Jammu seats, the opposition coalition is also expecting support of Independent MLAs including MY Tarigami of CPM, Hakim Mohammad Yasin of PDF, Pawan Gupta and Engineer Rashid. Their votes to PDP-BJP or NC-Congress combine or abstentions would decide fortunes of the second seat of Jammu, where Congress is contesting.
Sources in both NC-Congress said that as NC’s Aga Mehmood is almost through, because the PDP-BJP coalition is not fielding any candidate against this seat in Kashmir, the contest would be neck-to-neck for Jammu’s seat where Congress Balbir Singh will be in direct contest with BJP’s Vikram Randhava.
A senior leader in BJP told the News Now that party is well aware that Jammu seat is tough, but BJP will move ahead with a strategy and this seat is also a prestige issue for the party in its base Jammu. While contacted, BJP candidate Vikram Randhava said, “Yes, I know there is a direct contest on my seat, but I am sure that I will get victory.”
It is worth mentioning that election is scheduled to be held for three seats of Kashmir division, two seats of Jammu division and one seat of Poonch reserved seat.