Elections
In charts: How NC-Congress alliance swept J K with big margins
Summary
- Not only has the National Conference emerged as the biggest party in J&K, its candidates have also won with huge margins. It has won with over 30% margin in 6 constituencies and 15-30% margin in 19 constituencies.
The National Conference (NC) and Congress alliance has taken a big lead in Jammu and Kashmir, comfortably winning 48 out of the 90 constituencies, while the BJP improved its position from early trends and managed to capture 29 seats in the final tally.
Not only has NC emerged as the biggest party in J&K, its candidates also won with huge margins. The party has won with over 30% margin in 6 constituencies and 15-30% margin in 19 constituencies.
Even though the BJP is not close to the majority mark, it certainly made progress in the third phase of the elections. On the other hand, the election has proven to be a major upset for the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its chief Mehbooba Mufti, which won just 3 seats. Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti lost with 9,770 votes in the Srigufwara – Bijbehara constituency to NC’s Bashir Ahmed Veeri. When it comes to women candidates, 43 contested elections in the union territory but only three have won.
Interestingly, the BJP has trudged ahead of NC and Congress both in terms of vote share. However, the NC-Congress combined force stopped the BJP from gaining much of the seat share. BJP received a 25.6% vote share, while NC 23.4% and INC 12%.
Voting for all 90 seats was done in three phases through September and October. An overall 63.9% voter turnout was recorded.
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This is the first assembly election in a decade as revocation of the special status of J&K under Article 370 in August 2019 had led to cancellation of elections that year. The matter of Article 370, which used to give special status to Jammu and Kashmir, had become a major election issue, with the two biggest Kashmir political parties–the NC and the PDP–promising to restore statehood in their respective manifestos.
The NC will storm back to power after nearly a decade. The National Conference was last in power between 2009 and 2015, after which the People's Democratic Party in alliance with the BJP ran the government between 2015 and 2018. After that, Jammu and Kashmir was under the rule of the president.
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