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Mehbooba Mufti wins by-election to Anantnag Assembly seat
Defeats Congress candidate by more than 12,000 votes
6/25/2016 11:28:14 PM


Jehangir Rashid

Early Times Report

SRINAGAR, June 25: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today emerged victorious in the by-election to the Anantnag Assembly constituency defeating her closest rival Hilal Ahmad Shah of Congress by a margin of more than 12,000 votes. Iftikhar Ahmad Misgar of National Conference stood third in the elections.
The by-election to the Anantnag assembly seat was necessitated following the death of then chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 7 this year. Quite contrary to the expectations the contest turned out to be a one-sided with the chief minister winning the elections by a handsome margin of 12,085 votes. The chief minister managed to get 60 percent votes polled in the election.
Out of the 28,500 polled votes, Mehbooba secured 17,701 votes, while Shah secured 5,616. Iftikhar stood a distant third with 2,811 votes. Interestingly, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) did not field any candidate and the party supported the candidature of Mehbooba for this assembly constituency.
In the 2014 polls, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had defeated Congress candidate Shah by 6,000 votes and the margin has doubled this year with 12,085. This time around it was expected that the Congress candidate would get more votes, but that was not to be. Last time Shah had got around 10,000 votes and this time the votes polled by him stood at 5,616.
The PDP's winning margin has considerably gone up in Anantnag despite NC and Congress ruining an anti-BJP campaign and cornering Mehbooba for allying with the rightwing party.
National Conference and Congress alleged EVM tampering. "A lot of EVMs in Anantnag were without mandatory seals/locks. Electoral staff says since teachers were in-charge, their inexperience is the reason," NC spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu alleged. He however, congratulated Mehbooba for her victory.
Congress candidate Hilal Shah also alleged that EVM machines were tampered. In the legislative assembly Nawang Rigzin Jora alleged that the seven contesting candidates came out in protest after they found that the counting of votes is not done in prescribed manner. He said the candidates were told to keep quiet otherwise they would be booked under Public Safety Act (PSA). He also alleged that state machinery was misused in order to ensure Mehbooba's victory in the elections.
The elections for the Anantnag Assembly seat were held on June 22 and the voting percentage stood at 34 percent. The total number of registered voters in the Anantnag Assembly segment is 84,067 -- 42,840 males and 41,227 females. But only around 28,500 voters participated in the election, with poll percentage pegged at 34 per cent.
Today's win is Mehbooba's fourth to the Assembly from South Kashmir since 1996, when she started her political career as Congress candidate and contested from Bijbehara constituency. She was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag in 2014 general elections but returned to the state politics in April this year to take over as the state's chief minister after her father's demise. Mehbooba took oath as the first woman chief minister of the state on April 4.
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