After witnessing a close contest on the Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat the stage is now set for another interesting poll battle between the Bharatiya Janta Party and the Congress party on the Jammu-Reasi Lok Sabha seat in the second phase of polling on Friday.
Former Minister and Working President of the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir Raman Bhalla is challenging two-time sitting MP Jugal Kishore Sharma of BJP. Ankur Sharma of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal is also in the fray to test the political waters ahead of the maiden Assembly polls in the Union Territory.
In 2019, Jugal Kishore won the seat by a margin of over 3 lakh votes defeating his opponent Raman Bhalla. BJP candidate Jugal Kishore is hopeful of scoring a hat-trick riding high on the pro-Modi support base across Jammu, Samba and Reasi districts while the Congress candidate Raman Bhalla is hoping to encash on the anti-BJP sentiment in the backdrop of Abrogation of Article 370.
Lack of employment opportunities for the youth, unattended grievances of the border residents across Jammu and Samba districts, and sense of insecurity regarding land, and resources are the other key factors around which the Congress party ran its campaign to woo the electorate. The National Conference cadre has also helped the INDIA alliance candidate to give a tough challenge to the sitting BJP MP.
Post Delimitation, the Jammu-Reasi Lok Sabha seat has witnessed significant changes. For the first time after the 1967 polls, the Rajouri and Poonch districts will not be part of the Jammu Lok Sabha seat as the frontier districts were removed and attached to the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat during the marathon exercise. “Similarly, the whole of Reasi district has been removed from Udhampur constituency and allocated to Jammu. Post Delimitation, Jammu emerged as the constituency with the highest number of 23 percent Scheduled Caste votes.
The Election Commission authorities are geared up to boost the total poll percentage in the second phase on April 26.
The first phase of polling on the Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat recorded a poll percentage of 68.2 percent. In 2019, Jammu Lok Sabha seat had recorded a turnout of over 72 percent.
Around 17.80 lakh voters are expected to seal the fate of 22 candidates in the fray across 2416 polling stations spread across 4 districts of Jammu, Samba, Reasi and Rajouri (83- Kalakote-Sunderbani).
9,21,095 male and 8,59,712 female voters besides 28 third-gender voters have been enrolled in the voters list.
According to the office of the Returning Officer, special arrangements have been made to facilitate around 10498 Persons with Disability and 666 persons above the age of 100 years. At least 62 polling stations have been set up along the International border in Jammu and Samba districts. The polling parties were dispatched on Thursday to far-flung areas.
Around 1454 polling stations in phase 2 will have CCTV cameras for the live webcasting to control rooms established at the CEO/district offices.
In the entire Union Territory, from the date of announcement of the election till date material/cash of around Rs 28.497 crore has been seized by various enforcement departments.
