J&K election results: NC-Congress alliance's 48 winners include only 2 Hindu faces
J&K election results: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured victory in 29 seats, with 28 Hindus and one Sikh member elected.
In the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, the National Conference (NC) and the Indian National Congress (INC) alliance secured 48 seats.
However, only two Hindu candidates emerged as winners out of the 30 candidates from the community fielded by the bloc, which included several members of the Sikh community, news agency PTI reported.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured victory in 29 seats, with 28 Hindus and one Sikh member elected, as none of their Muslim candidates, including two former ministers, were successful.
Who are those Hindu candidates?
Among the notable victories, National Conference's Surinder Choudhary defeated Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina in the Nowshera constituency of Rajouri district, winning by a margin of 7,819 votes.
Choudhary, a former Member of the Legislative Council (MLC), garnered 35,069 votes, while Raina received 27,250 votes. In the 2014 assembly elections, Raina had won the Nowshera seat by defeating Choudhary, who was then contesting on a PDP ticket, with a margin exceeding 10,000 votes.
Choudhary resigned from the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in 2022 to join the BJP, but he left the party after more than a year to rejoin the National Conference in July of the previous year.
Arjun Singh Raju is the other Hindu candidate to win on a National Conference ticket, securing victory in the Ramban assembly segment. He received 28,425 votes, defeating his closest rival, BJP rebel candidate Suraj Singh Parihar, who garnered 19,412 votes, giving Raju a winning margin of 9,013 votes. The BJP's Rakesh Singh Thakur finished in third place with 17,511 votes.
The National Conference had fielded nine Hindu candidates, including one woman, but only two emerged victorious. In contrast, the Congress party nominated 19 Hindu and two Sikh candidates, primarily in the Jammu region, but none succeeded, with most finishing as runners-up.
Furthermore, none of the 25 Muslim candidates fielded by the BJP, including two former ministers, were able to win, with many losing their security deposits, particularly in the Kashmir valley. Overall, the BJP put forward a total of 62 candidates, achieving victory with only 28 Hindus and one Sikh candidate in the Jammu region.