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| PDP wave may prove too much for Omar in Beerwah | | | Bashir Assad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Nov 19: The Beerwah constituency in Central Kashmir's Budgam District is in news because Chief Minister and National Conference Working President Omar Abdullah has decided to contest from here.
Beerwah comprises of four tehsils, viz, Khag, Beerwah, Narbal and Magam. Beerwah has 119 polling stations in total. Number of migrant votes in the constituency is just above 700.
Political and social activists and prominent citizens from Beerwah constituency maintain that there will be neck to neck contest between People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Dr Mohammad Shafi Wani and Omar Abdullah. Nazir Ahmad Khan of Congress will make the contest more interesting.
Some people suggest that there will be direct contest between Nazir Ahmed Khan and Dr Shafi Wani of PDP. This constituency is currently represented by Shafi in the state legislature.
"30 to 40 percent voters in the Constituency are Shia Muslim who vote in large numbers. These voters can play a decisive role in the elections" analysts said.
Omar Abdullah has some goodwill in hilly areas of Khag and its adjoining areas including Shunglipora, Sugan, Hamchipora, Poshkar. Residents of these areas feel that it was only after the intervention of Omar Abdullah that the lease of Tosamaidan Firing Range was not extended. However, a large section of population feel that it will be no fun to elect Omar as they believe that his party stands little chance of forming the next government.
"Majority of the people feel that they will again be at the receiving end in case Omar wins and PDP forms the next government. As Chief Minister, he visited the constituency only once and did nothing for its development," they say.
Another section of people, particularly youth, feel that Beerwah was ignored by the coalition government and no development took place there during past six years.
Mohammad Hashim, a lawyer said that during Omar Abdullah's regime, neither Primary Health Centre, as promised to the people was upgraded and nor was the area given a Fire & Emergency Station. "Roads are in a bad shape, there is no electricity, mobile and internet connectivity is poor. It takes an hour to complete a distance of 9 kilometers from Magam to Beerwah due to pathetic road condition," he said.
Political observers believe that among the four tehsils of Beerwah constituency, the voting in Khag will have a major impact on the results. They observe that Khag always witnesses highest voter turnout
than other tehsils and here people will vote this time for the development.
In 2008 Assembly Elections, Beerwah witnessed a neck to neck contest where Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Shafi Ahmad Wani defeated his close rival Abdul Majeed Mattoo of National Conference with a margin of just 164 votes. While Wani got 24.42 percent from the total 57.11 polled 11720 votes, NC candidate and ex-registrar Kashmir University Mattoo got 11556 votes, with 21.29 percent of the votes polled here.
In 2002 Assembly elections, it was Sarfarz Ahmed Khan of PDP who defeated his National Conference rival Muhammad Amin Banday by a margin of 11,000 votes. In recent Parliament elections, People Democratic Party secured 16876 votes in Beerwah assembly segment while National Conference got only 14,838 votes.
Political Pundits feel that as PDP came to fore due to recent results that emerged from 2014 Parliament elections, the chances of PDP candidate are bright.
Omar has visited this constituency only once since he was declared as the NC nominee from here. Omar had come to Beerwah to visit Abdul Majeed Mattoo, who is his relative.
Dr Shafi of PDP today filed his nomination papers for the constituency. He was accompanied by senior PDP leader and MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig. The duo later addressed a mammoth gathering at Beerwah Chowk. |
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