24 seats and over 2.3mn voters: Stage set for J&K polls Phase 1

Jammu & Kashmir will kick off its first assembly elections in a decade on Wednesday as 2.3 million voters across 24 of its 90 constituencies will cast their franchise in the first phase of the polls, where issues of statehood, the impact of Article 370’s abrogation, a spike in terror strikes, and development worries are the crucial rallying points.
According to Election Commission (EC) officials, 2,327,580 electors are eligible to vote across seven districts, located on either side of the Pir Panjal mountain range. Of the seats going to vote on Wednesday, eight are in three districts of the Jammu region — Doda, Ramban, and Kishtwar, and 16 in four districts of Kashmir — Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian, and Kulgam.
“There are 302 urban and 2,974 rural polling stations. Four election staff, including the presiding officer, will be stationed in each polling station. In total, more than 14,000 polling staff will be deployed on duty for the first phase of election. Voting will start at 7am and continue till 6pm,” a poll body official said, requesting anonymity.
EC officials said they have taken steps to keep a close watch on all the polling stations. “All of our officials started leaving for their respective polling stations at 5am on Tuesday. Our system is functioning as per the EC’s SoPs. There is webcasting at every poll station, cameras have been installed, and we are monitoring every polling station from our control room,” Ramban’s deputy election officer Abdul Jabbar said.
A total of 219 candidates, including 90 Independents, are in the fray for the first leg of the three-phase poll contest, which is poised between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Congress-National Conference combine, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A last-minute alliance between Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) and politico-religious outfit Jamaat-e-Islami — their candidates will contest as Independents — and a host of local parties such as the People’s Conference, the Apni Party, and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) are likely to make inroads and skew the electoral arithmetic.
PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti, Congress general secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir, and senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami are among the key candidates in the first phase.
These are the first assembly polls in the restive region since its special status and statehood were scrapped five years ago and is likely to be the last step before the Union territory’s statehood is restored. In the run-up to the polls, leaders from across the party lines promised to bring back J&K’s statehood if they win.
The elections are taking place against the backdrop of an increase in terror activities in the region, which has prompted authorities to step up deployment. This year, 14 security personnel and 11 civilians have died in separate extremist attacks in Jammu. Security forces have gunned down 10 terrorists in the region. In Kashmir, five personnel and seven civilians have died in terror strikes, with forces killing 27 terrorists in the same period.
“We have made elaborate security arrangements so that maximum number of people can exercise their right to vote. A multi-tier security arrangement consisting of personnel from the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF), Jammu & Kashmir Armed Police, and J&K Police will be deployed,” inspector general of police (Kashmir Zone) VK Birdi said.
The security situation in the UT remained a key poll plank ahead of the first phase, with senior leaders from different parties raising the issue in their rallies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah said terrorism was pushed to the fringes after the BJP came to power at the Centre, but opposition leaders, including former CM Omar Abdullah and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, maintained that the situation on the ground had deteriorated in the last decade.
These will also be the first assembly polls in J&K since a controversial delimitation exercise earmarked 47 assembly seats for Kashmir and 43 for Jammu in its final order. The panel gave Jammu six additional seats and Kashmir one, sparking allegations from the Opposition that the balance was tilting in favour of Hindu-majority Jammu. The panel also reserved nine seats for Scheduled Tribes, renamed some assembly constituencies, and redrew some others.
In 2014, the Peoples Democratic Party emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats and formed an alliance of ideological extremes with the BJP, which had 25 seats. But the coalition collapsed early in 2018 after the BJP withdrew support and Governor’s Rule was imposed in June that year in controversial circumstances. On August 5, 2019, the Union government revoked Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the erstwhile region.