Early Times Report
Srinagar: Elections authorities on Saturday rejected candidature of ten candidates after the scrutiny of the nomination papers, leaving 13 candidates in fray for the north Kashmir parliamentary constituency, going to polls on the last phase of the staggered five phased polls in the state.
Official sources said that Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla, Lateef-ul-Zaman Deva, who is also the returning officer for the segment, rejected the candidature of ten independent candidates on various grounds.
In all, 23 candidates including chairman of his faction of Peoples Conference, Sajad Gani Lone, National Conference (NC) nominee Shareef-ud-din Sharik and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Mohammad Dilawar Mir had filed the nomination papers for the constituency.
With the rejection, thirteen candidates have been left in fray before the withdrawal of nominations on April 27.
Officials said that two women candidates Shafiqa Akhtar and Vijay kumari were among ten independent candidates whose nominations papers were rejected. The others include Khazir Mohammad Ganai, Hamid Ullah Teli, Abdul Karim Khawaja, Imtiyaz Ahmad Wani, Anil Kumar, Javed Ahmad Qureshi, Sardar Khan and Bashir Ahmad.
Baramulla Parliamentary constituency, set to go to polls on May 13, has a total electorate of 10, 54,086, which includes 1,627 service electors. Out of the total registered voters, 5,49,778 are male and 5,04,308 female who will exercise their franchise in the Lok Sabha Elections 2009.
For the constituencies, there are 1946 polling booths spread over nineteen Assembly Segments including Karnah, Kupwara, Lolab, Handwara, Langate, Uri, Rafiabad, Sopore, Sangrama, Baramulla, Gulmarg, Pattan, Gurez, Bandipora, Sonawari, Nobra, Leh, Kargil and Zanskar.
According to the political pundits, the Baramulla constituency is in for an intriguing battle among three candidates including the Sajjad Lone, chairman of People’s Conference faction who broke away from the pro-freedom camp recently. The other two include People’s Democratic Party candidate Mohammad Dilawar Mir and Sharief-u-din Sharik of the ruling National Conference.
The constituency has been predominantly held by National Conference candidates after the first Lok sabha election in 1967.
In 1967 and 1971 midterm elections, Baramulla Parliamentary constituency was represented by Syed Ahmad Aga of the Congress. In 1977 elections, the seat was won by Abdul Ahad of the National Conference while as in the midterm 1980 election, Mubarak Shah of NC emerged as victorious. In 1984 and 1989, the seat was won by Prof. Saifuddin Soz on National Conference ticket while in 1996, the seat went to Ghulam Rasool Kar of congress while as in 1998, the seat was wrested by Prof. Saif-ud-din Soz of NC while the constituency was represented by Abdul Rashid Shaheen of the National Conference since 1999.
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