Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 6: The Peoples’ Alliance for Gupkar Alliance (PAGD) received severe setback as the newly formed Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) captured Srinagar and Shopian District Development Councils (DDCs) despite having less numbers.
Apni Party has only two members in the DDC Shopian but party’s candidates namely Bilquees Jan and Irfan were elected as chairperson and vice-chairperson respectively. Interestingly Gupkar Alliance with the support of Congress was in a position to capture Shopian DDC but due to lack of coordination Gupkar Alliance failed to mobilize adequate numbers.
By winning Shopian DDC, the Apni Party has given a clear message that in the remaining 11 DDCs, it will be difficult for the Gupkar Alliance to win elections for the chairperson or vice-chairperson.
Similarly in the prestigious Srinagar DDC, Apni Party’s Malik Altaf won election as chairman. He secured 10 votes while his rival Kaiser Ganai got only three votes. One member was absent during the voting.
As reported earlier, after declaration of the results on December 22, Apni Party had started the efforts to rope in Independents to sabotage the attempt of the Gupkar Alliance to capture DDCs of Kashmir Valley.
Instead of supporting the PAGD the newly elected Independent DDC members have preferred to join the Apni Party which is all-out to rope in these members to form NC gives ‘shock’ to PDP in Kulgam
Instead of taking PDP before finalizing candidates for the chairperson and vice-chairperson of Kulgam DDC, National Conference entered into an alliance with CPI(M) and shared both the seats. CPI(M) candidate Mohammad Afzal was elected as chairperson and NC’s Shazia as vice-chairperson. Both CPI (M) and NC have five members each followed by two each of PDP and Congress. As part of agreement between two parties, NC also bagged the seat of Chairperson Municipal Council Kulgam as well.
Bilqees Jan, who was elected as chairperson of DDC Shopian, had won election as DDC member from Zainpora-I district as Independent candidate but joined the Apni Party within days after declaration of the result. Independents account for 18 percent of the total of 280 elected DDC members.
Meanwhile, Bharat Bhushan of BJP was elected as Chairperson of DDC Jammu while Suraj Singh of the same party got elected as Vice-Chairperson of the DDC, Jammu. Since BJP had swept the DDC polls, the victory of Bharat and Suraj was quite imminent and today’s election was just a formality.
Similarly, the election for DDC Chairperson and Vice Chairperson Kulgam were held today at Kulgam. All the 14 DDC members participated in the election process and elected Mohammad Afzal Parray of CPI-M as Chairperson and Shazia Jan of National Conference as Vice- Chairperson of DDC Kulgam.
The election to elect the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for District Development Council Kathua was also held at Conference Hall of DC Office, Kathua today.
Mahan Singh, the elected member from Basohli Territorial constituency was declared elected unopposed for the post of Chairperson while Raghunandan Singh elected member from Territorial constituency Kathua was declared elected unopposed as Vice-Chairperson by District Election Officer Kathua. Both Mahan and Raghunandan belong to BJP. | 