Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
JAMMU: With the Election Commission of India appearing to be keen to hold the by-elections on the two seats of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in the first six months of the vacancies—most likely alongside the Assembly elections in Delhi, in February 2025—the ruling National Conference (NC) and the principal Opposition party BJP have begun an exercise to search the best of their candidates.
The vacancies in Kashmir’s Budgam and Jammu’s Nagrota were created by the resignation of the NC’s Omar Abdullah and the death of the BJP’s Devender Singh Rana. NC’s Chief Ministerial candidate Omar contested from the two seats of Ganderbal and Budgam and won from the both segments with substantial victory margins.
In Ganderbal, Omar contested the Assembly elections of 2024 against 14 candidates. He polled 32,727 votes and defeated his nearest rival, PDP’s Bashir Ahmad Mir, with a margin of 10,574 votes. All others forfeited their security deposits. In Budgam, Omar contested against 7 candidates. He secured 36,010 votes and defeated his nearest rival, senior Hurriyat leader Aga Syed Hassan’s son and PDP’s candidate Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi, with a remarkable margin of 18,485 votes. All others forfeited their deposits.
He retained his ancestral seat of Ganderbal and, under rules, resigned from Budgam on 21 October.
The vacancy in Nagrota was created by the unexpected death of the BJP stalwart Devender Singh Rana. For his 3rd consecutive term, Rana contested on BJP’s ticket, polled 48,113 votes and defeated his nearest rival, NC’s Joginder Singh, with a humongous margin of 30,472 votes. Previously, he had been returned from the same segment on NC’s ticket in 2008 and 2014. After working with the NC for about 10 years, Rana was initially elected as MLC in 2007.
In 2009-14, he functioned as Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s advisor, holding the status of a minister. Until his resignation and shifting to the BJP in October 2021, this businessman-turned-politician was seen as the closest confidant of Omar Abdullah as well as the NC patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah. He died days after being elected and sworn in as MLA, Rana passed away on 1 November.
For a host of reasons, Rana’s eldest daughter, Divyani, is seen as his successor in politics and the BJP’s potential contender in Nagrota. After completing her Masters in the USA, she looked after the family’s stake in media—primarily Take-1 TV. However, her father’s untimely death accidentally catapulted her into politics.
BJP’s only other potential candidate in Nagrota is Jugal Kishore Sharma. But he is already the party’s incumbent Lok Sabha member from Jammu—his 3rd successive term after winning in 2014 and 2019. Jugal surfaced as a potential contestant after he defeated NC’s Ajatshatru Singh from Nagrota in the Assembly elections of 2002 and 2008. Previously, Ajatshatru Singh, senior Congress leader Dr Karan Singh’s son, had contested on NC’s ticket from Nagrota in 1996. Dr Abdullah inducted him as the Minister of Tourism in his cabinet.
Subsequently, Ajatsharu Singh got a term as MLC. Later, he resigned from the NC and joined the BJP. His brother Vikramaditya Singh also resigned from Congress, after serving a term as PDP’s MLC, and joined the BJP. However, in the last more than six years, both the brothers have virtually gone into oblivion and are not seen as contenders for the BJP’s ticket in Nagrota.
In the Assembly elections of 2014, BJP’s Nand Kishore secured 19,630 votes against DS Rana’s 23,678. However, neither he nor any other leader of the party has been able to create a niche for himself in Nagrota. According to the party insiders, the Ranas are holding “an extremely strong vote-bank” (a mixture of the Muslim Gujjar and the Hindu vote) in Nagrota. They insist that Nand Kishore’s vote was because of a strong “Modi wave” in 2014.
Joginder Singh appears to be the NC’s only potential candidate in Nagrota till date. “We have three names under consideration but we haven’t zeroed in on any one. It will take us some time”, said a senior NC leader in Jammu.
In Budgam, the situation is pretty unclear as there are a number of potential contenders within the NC. According to some insiders, those under consideration include Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s son, Zamir, who, alongwith his brother, was part of the party’s campaign—first in the Lok Sabha elections from North Kashmir and later in the Assembly elections in Ganderbal and Budgam. Neither of Omar’s sons has been in active politics or contested any election.
The second potential contender is none other than CM’s advisor Nasir Aslam Wani aka Nasir Sogami who won the first Assembly elections from Amirakadal in 2008 and was later inducted as a Minister of State in Omar’s Council of Ministers. He contested the recent Assembly elections from Kupwara but lost to PDP’s Mir Mohammad Fayaz, who was PDP’s Rajya Sabha member from 2015 to 2019.
However, according to the insiders, there’s “a degree of resentment” against the party’s perceived move of fielding “an outsider” in Budgam. NC has won all the 8 Assembly elections from Budgam since 1977. While Syed Ghulam Hussain Geelani was returned successively in 1977, 1983, 1987 and 1996, Aga Syed Ruhulla Mehdi was elected in 2002, 2008 and 2014.
Now that Aga Ruhullah has won the Parliamentary elections in 2024 and Omar Abdullah has retained Ganderbal, Budgam remains open for its local contenders. The most potential contender among them is none other than Aga Syed Mehmood, who was elected from Pattan in 1987 and from Beerwah in 1996. Both the times, he was inducted as a Minister of State in Dr Farooq Abdullah’s NC Government.
But the NC’s problem is that the influential Shia cleric and separatist leader Aga Syed Hassan’s son, Aga Muntazir, cuts away a substantial chunk of the Shia vote which previously helped Ruhullah and Geelani to win. “We can face a tough contest if the opposition fields a strong Sunni Muslim candidate against our Shia Muslim candidate. We will choose our candidate with full application of mind”, said a senior leader.
Apart from Aga Muntazir, there is a strong likelihood of Nazir Ahmad Khan being fielded as the Opposition’s consensus candidate in Budgam. Khan is the son of former MLA Beerwah and Minister late Sarfaraz Khan. He is currently chairman of District Development Council Budgam. In Beerwah, he gave a tough fight to Omar in 2014. In 2024, however, he lost to NC’s Dr Shafi Ahmad Wani, who had won from Beerwah on PDP’s ticket in 2008.
The main reason for Nazir Khan’s defeat in 2024 was that a jailed separatist ideologue Sarjan Ahmad Wagay aka Sarjan Barkati, cut away a substantial chunk of his vote which benefited the NC candidate who was otherwise very weak in the electoral battle.
