LS Polls: Notification for First phase today, parties gear up

JAMMU: The polling process to elect the next government of the world's largest democracy begins on Monday with the Election Commission set to issue the notification for the first of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls involving 91 seats spread over 20 states and union territories.

Among these, two of Jammu and Kashmir’s six seats are also included—Baramulla-Kupwara constituency in North Kashmir and Jammu-Poonch in Jammu region. The Baramulla seat is currently represented by Muzaffar Hussain Beg of the Peoples Democratic Party while the Jammu-Poonch seat is represented by Jugal Kishore Sharma of BJP.

The notification would herald filing of nominations by the candidates for these parliamentary constituencies, before plunging into the heat and dust for a gruelling campaign for the elections to the 17th Lok Sabha.

The last date for filing nominations for the first phase is March 25. The scrutiny takes place the next day, while March 28 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

The polling day is April 11.

Besides Jammu and Baramulla, the first phase involves all the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies of Andhra Pradesh, and 17 from Telangana.

The others states and union territories going to the polls in this round are: Arunachal Pradesh (2), Assam (5), Bihar (4), Chattishgarh (1), Maharashtra (7), Manpur (1), Meghalaya (2), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Odisha (4), Sikkim (1), Tripura (1), Uttar Pradesh (8), Uttarakhand (5), West Bengal (2), Andaman and Nicobar (1) and Lakshadweep (1).

The five-year term of the 16th Lok Sabha is due to expire on June 3.

Simultaneously, notification would be issued for Aassembly elections for four states - Andhara Pradesh (all 175 constituencies), Odisha (28 of total 147 constituencies), Sikkim (all 32 constiuencies) and Arunachal Pradesh (all 60 constituencies).

The votes would be counted on May 23.

The subsequent polling dates are April 18 (97 Lok Sabha constituencies), April 23 (115), April 29 (71), May 6 (51), May 12 (59) and May 19 (59).

Meanwhile, Kashmir is warming up for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections as major political parties in the valley like the National Conference and the PDP held a series of rallies on Sunday, with the new entrant Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement led by former IAS officer Shah Faesal also making its debut.

National Conference (NC) vice president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah chose PDP stronghold of south Kashmir to kick-start the mass contact programme as the party organised a rally at Khanabal in Anantnag district of the militancy infested region.

Although the party has not announced its candidates for the Lok Sabha polls for the three seats in the valley, Abdullah starting the campaign from south Kashmir shows that the party is focussed on gaining the lost ground in what has turned into a stronghold for the PDP over the past two decades.

"The parliamentary board of the party will meet tomorrow (Monday) and the candidates for Lok Sabha elections will be announced only after that," provincial president of the party Nasir Aslam Wani said.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister, began the campaign trail from north Kashmir's Kupwara district but other party leaders stayed put in south Kashmir, holding a party convention in Kulgam district.

Mufti extolled her party workers as “real mujahideen.”

“Even though a PDP worker may not have a gun or stone in his hands, you are the real mujahid. Your contribution to the society is far greater than the contribution of workers of other parties that have been around for decades,” she said.

Mehbooba said every Kashmiri should feel proud of PDP as every single worker of the party is an “asli mujahid.”

The PDP campaign strategy seems to be a mirror image of the NC strategy as the party has focussed on areas where they have lost ground over the years.

Sajad Gani Lone's People's Conference has made major inroads in the past five years in Kupwara district while the PDP managed to win only one of the four seats in Kulgam district in the 2014 assembly elections, in spite of a strong wave in its favour at that time.

Shah Faesal's People's Movement was also formally launched at a public rally in the heart of the city here on Sunday.

While Faesal, soon after his resignation from government service in January this year had expressed his desire to contest the Lok Sabha elections, a party leader Sunday said they will take a final decision on contesting the parliamentary elections in the next few days.

The gatherings at the rallies of all three parties might not have been proportional to the nature of the elections but the numbers were respectable enough, given the general disinterest in the Lok Sabha elections in Kashmir over the past three decades.

The voter turn out in Lok Sabha polls in Kashmir has been on the lower side since the eruption of militancy in the valley in 1990.

The electioneering activity is expected to pick up in the coming days political parties announce their candidates for the polls and parties like the Congress and the BJP kick-start their respective campaigns.