Javaid Naikoo
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Dec 24: BJP, which created hype for achieving Mission 44+ without knowing the ground reality here, could not add much to its previous dismal performance in Kashmir as 33 out of total 34 party candidates, who contested from Kashmir this time, lost their security deposits.
According to official figures, the total number of votes polled for all the BJP candidates in Kashmir division were 39,959 and despite immense media hype and a lot of expenditure through different means, 33 out of 34 BJP candidates lost their security deposits due to poor performance.
At one point of time, BJP's central Kashmir president Ali Mohammad had claimed to win three seats from Srinagar, three from South Kashmir and one from Budgam district. The figures, however, reveal that Javed Qadri, who contested from Shopian, polled 3384 votes, the highest by any BJP candidate in Kashmir.
In Srinagar's Habba Kadal, BJP's Moti Kaul got 2596 votes, Ashok Bhat got 550 votes from Khanyar, Darakshan Andrabi, who remained in news headlines all the time for praising BJP policies, secured only 1100 votes from Sonwar constituency while contesting against Omar Abdullah of NC and Mohammad Ashraf Mir of PDP.
The noted woman face of BJP in Srinagar, Hina Bhat secured only 1359 votes from Amira Kadal against Mohammad Altaf Bukhari of PDP and Nasir Aslam Wani of NC and wept bitterly in open after results were announced and another female candidate, Neelam Gaash, who fought on the party mandate from Srinagar's Zadibal polled the lowest of 360 votes, while all other candidates from South and North Kashmir could not secure their security deposits.
As reported earlier, there was no visible support for BJP candidates in any constituency, yet the party office bearers without knowing ground reality only visited Kashmir frequently and spent enormous amount of money without even evaluating the dismal past of BJP's candidates in Kashmir.
As per figures available with Early Times, during 2008 assembly elections Amira Kadal constituency which saw a voter turnout of 14.98% BJP only secured 149 votes, in Habbakadal, which saw a voter turnout of 11.62 %, BJP secured only 671 votes, in Tral where 48 % voter turnout was recorded BJP secured 338 votes.
Pertinently after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of abrogation of article 370 during his campaigning of Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates, who contested from Kashmir, got only 15,845 votes.
While BJP improved its position in the valley in the 2014 elections, party candidates of Kashmir only disappointed their top leaders who expected to open their account in the valley. |
