Anantnag: Tough for Mehbooba Mufti, challenge for forces

Anantnag: Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency comprises  16 Assembly segments and spreads over four districts — Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama. All these districts, often referred to as ‘South Kashmir’, have witnessed surge in violence in the aftermath of the killing of popular Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July 2016.

The situation only worsened with multiple big encounters routinely taking place in which several hundred militants including many top commanders were killed since then.

Despite suffering huge losses, the militants entrenched in South Kashmir have constantly carried out attacks on security forces, the worst being  suicide car bomb attack on a CRPF convoy at Lethapora (Pulwama) on February 14, in which 49 jawans were killed. Hence, South Kashmir has been ranked as the most dangerous area in Kashmir Valley. Hence, the polling in Anantnag constituency will be held in three phases, which is unprecedented in the recent history of Jammu and Kashmir.

Also, the Election Commission of India (EC) has reduced the poll timings at all the 1,842 polling stations by two hours. In a notification issued by it on Thursday, the polling time has fixed from 7 am to 4 pm, which was earlier 7 am to 6 pm. The EC has amended the timings after receiving reports from the state government, the district administration and the police about difficult security environment and challenges in the constituency, the official sources said. Polling will be held in Anantnag district on April 23, Kulgam on April 29 and Pulwama and Shopian on May 6.

Former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti is locked in a multi-cornered contest with facing tough challenge mainly from Congress party’s Ghulam Ahmed Mir.

The ‘friendly contest’ between ‘natural allies’ Congress and National Conference (NC) on two of the Valley seats — Anantnag and Baramulla — appears to have failed to strike right chord with the voters. Apparently realising the NC has fielded a ‘weak’ candidate in Anantnag, the Congress picked up its J&K unit chief Mr Mir to take mainly on Ms Mufti and other candidates in fray including BJP’s Sofi Muhammad Yusuf.

The sources said that both the parties realised that NC’s candidate Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi may not be able to attract many voters, which could make sailing easy for the PDP chief. “Replacing him would have disheartened this new entrant in the party and created somewhat unpleasant situation, which could have been seized by the NC’s bête noire PDP to its benefit,” said an NC party insider.

The Congress campaigners, particularly Ghulam Nabi Azad, have been burning the midnight oil to ensure Mr Mir’s win. The Congress as well as NC is trying to benefit from the hostility in people towards Ms Mufti due to their ‘pain and suffering’ during her tenure as chief minister.

However, the PDP leader has been able to revive to great extent its traditional support in South Kashmir by raising emotive issues and projecting herself as a victim of BJP ‘onslaught’ for ‘defending the interests of the Kashmiris’.

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