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The Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly constituency, one of the most high-profile seats in south Kashmir, is considered a stronghold of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Iltija Mufti, daughter of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, is fighting her first political battle on the family’s home turf of Bijbehara against National Conference (NC) veteran Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri. The voting is underway in the seat.
The Assembly segment was renamed and redrawn after the delimitation exercise and now spreads across the Jhelum river, along with the four-lane highway passing through the area. Iltija Mufti, grand-daughter of PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, is banking on her family lineage on the seat, which has earlier been represented by two generations of the Mufti family. On the other hand, Bashir Veeri, who has unsuccessfully contested several elections in the past, carries vast electoral experience and is hoping to break the jinx this time.
Besides Iltija Mufti and Bashir Veeri, Sofi Yousif of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the only other candidate in the fray from this seat in the 2024 Assembly elections. Over the past few decades, the PDP has not lost any Assembly poll from this seat. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party lost the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency, but continued to maintain a lead in the Assembly segment over NC.
However, in the past decade, NC has gained a lot of popularity in the region, thereby making it a tough challenge for PDP. Bashir Veeri lost two elections in a row from Srigufwara-Bijbehara, however, he believes that people will "teach a lesson” to the Mehbooba Mufti-led party this time. During the 2014 Assembly elections, the PDP bagged 28 out of 87 seats in Jammu and Kashmir, and emerged as the single-largest party in the erstwhile state.
It was closely followed by the BJP at 25, while NC and Congress could only manage 15 and 12 seats, respectively. ALSO READ | Jammu and Kashmir Polls: A look at key candidates in phase 1 Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly election: Voting date Polling for the 2024 Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir is being conducted in three phases on September 18, September 25 and October 1, across all the 90 seats in the Union territory. The counting of votes is on October 8.
In Srigufwara-Bijbehara, polling is held on September 18. The seat has a total of 102,000 eligible voters, including 50,214 male voters and 50,803 female voters. Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly election: Candidates list In total, there are three candidates in the fray from the Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Candidate Names Party Iltija Mufti Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri National Conference Sofi Yousif Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly election: 2014 result In 2014, Abdul Rehman Bhat of the PDP defeated NC's Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri by 2,868 votes. Candidate Names Party Votes Abdul Rehman Bhat PDP 23,581 Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri National Conference 20,713.
