BJP Releases and Withdraws First List of Candidates for Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released its first nomination list of 44 candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections but retracted it within hours. The party had initially announced 37 candidates from the Jammu region and seven from the Kashmir Valley, including two Kashmiri Pandits, Veer Saraf and Ashok Bhat, who were nominated for the Shangus and Habbakadal constituencies, respectively.

The initial list also featured two Kashmiri Pandits and 14 Muslim candidates. It included several former members of Congress, National Conference, PDP, and Panthers Party who had recently joined the BJP. The deleted list notably omitted key figures such as Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina, and former Deputy Chief Ministers Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta. It did include Devendra Rana, the brother of Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh, who recently joined the BJP from the National Conference. According to reports, the party is expected to release a revised list soon.

As reported by Hindustan Times, the Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew the initial list because it inadvertently included candidates for all three phases of the election, rather than just the first phase.

The BJP's Central Election Committee finalized the first list after a key meeting in Delhi, attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP chief JP Nadda. The previous assembly election in 2014 saw the BJP winning 25 seats, while the PDP emerged as the largest party with 28 seats. The National Conference and Congress won 15 and 12 seats, respectively. The BJP later formed a coalition government with the PDP, which was led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then by Mehbooba Mufti after Sayeed’s death in 2016.

Jammu and Kashmir will hold assembly elections in three phases: September 19, September 25, and October 1, with the results to be announced on October 4. This will be the first assembly election since the region's special status was revoked in 2019 and it was divided into two Union Territories. This election will feature a tripartite contest among the BJP, PDP, and a National Conference-Congress alliance. The Congress and National Conference are still negotiating seat-sharing arrangements, with top Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Salman Khurshid dispatched to Srinagar to resolve differences. The Election Commission of India has reported that Jammu and Kashmir has 87.09 lakh eligible voters, including 44.46 lakh males, 42.62 lakh females, and 3.71 lakh first-time voters. The average number of voters per polling station is 735.