Amir Tantray
Jammu, Sep 4: The biggest constituency in district Kishtwar in terms of votes, Kishtwar-49 Assembly constituency is all set to witness a direct fight between former Minister of State (MoS) Home Sajad Ahmed Kichloo and Shagun Parihar, a new face launched by Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).
Historically the fight has remained between the NC and the BJP on this seat and at most of the time NC candidates have emerged victorious except 2014 when BJP’s Sunil Sharma defeated Kichloo.
After delimitation of Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, many areas like Marwah, Warwan, Dachan Nagseni and Padder were cut from Kishtwar seat and a few were added to it like Drabshala and adjoining areas. According to the data issued by the chief electoral officer Jammu and Kashmir, 74466 electorates including 37838 male, 36625 female and three transgender voters will be eligible to cast their votes on September 18 during the first phase of Assembly elections.
This high profile seat has always remained in the news for wrong reasons like communal clashes between the communities, which some have attributed to handiwork of political parties and leaders for their personal benefits. But when it comes to daily routine, people from both the communities enjoy good rapport with each other and many do their business with each other.
Historically NC has remained a dominant force on Kishtwar seat and Kichloo family has controlled it since long. Since 1996, NC has been winning it since 2008 but during the 2014 elections BJP won it and sent Sunil Sharma to the J&K legislative Assembly where he became a minister as well.
As this time, NC has repeated the candidature of Sajad Kichloo, BJP has brought a new face Shagun Parihar, daughter of Ajit Parihar, who alongwith his brother Anil Parihar were killed by unidentified terrorists in Kishtwar town on November 1, 2018. BJP has given the mandate to Shagun Parihar with an aim to fetch emotional votes associated with her family.
Whereas NC candidate is asking people to vote for him for the work he has done to uplift the area in general and Kishtwar constituency in particular.
Apart from NC and BJP, PDP has fielded former MLA Firdous Ahmed Tak, a lawyer by profession, whereas on candidate is from Bahujan Samaj Party and three other independents are also in the fray. There may not be much impact of PDP and other players on this seat as the fight is directly between NC and BJP. As NC is having alliance with Congress party, the latter hasn’t fielded any candidate from here and also Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) hasn’t fielded anybody on this seat.
