Voters in 90 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly constituencies will have their ballots tallied

INN/Srinagar, @Infodeaofficial

Beginning Tuesday morning, the 90 Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir will have their ballots counted. This is the last stage of the electoral process that will lead to the first elected government in the union territory since Article 370 was repealed in 2019.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Congress-National Conference combination have emerged as the main candidates in the assembly election, which has attracted a lot of interest. After the former state was divided into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh five years ago, elections have never been held before.

While the administration worked to finalise the procedures for the counting, political parties continued to evaluate their chances on Monday. This included improved security setups at each of the 20 district headquarters’ counting centres. Election Commission representatives verified that all centres had implemented a three-tier security system to guarantee a seamless counting process in the UT, which has traditionally experienced security issues like as insurgency and terrorism.

To keep the peace, security guards have been stationed at strategic locations throughout the Jammu and Kashmir Valley, and the military are constantly on high alert.

These three-phase elections are the first Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014. There were 24 contests for the first phase, 26 for the second, and 40 for the third round of the 90 seats.

There are 873 candidates running in all, and the results—which will be announced by Tuesday night—will show who will make up the 90-member parliament. In this election, 63.45% of voters cast ballots, which is just less than the 65.52 percent turnout seen in the 2014 surveys.

Leader of the National Conference Omar Abdullah (running from Budgam and Ganderbal), Leader of the People’s Conference Sajad Gani Lone (from Handwara and Kupwara), President of the Pradesh Congress Committee Tariq Hamid Karra (from Batamaloo), and State President of the BJP Ravindra Raina (from Nowshera) are a few of the well-known contenders.

Ghulam Ahmad Mir (Dooru), the general secretary of the Congress Party, Waheed Para (Pulwama) and Iltija Mufti (Bijbehara), President Altaf Bukhari of the Apni Party, CPI(M) veteran Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami (Kulgam), and former deputy chief ministers Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Tara Chand are among the other prominent candidates.