By IANS,
Jammu : The electoral process for the second of the seven-phase assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir began Wednesday. The second phase will have elections in six constituencies involving over 480,000 voters.
The notification for the first phase of polls was issued Oct 24 for 10 assembly seats.
The mountainous border district of Rajouri, in Jammu region, with four seats and the newly created Ganderbal district in Kashmir valley with two seats will vote in the second phase of polling to be held Nov 23.
The last date of filing of nominations is Nov 5.
A total of 353,457 voters are registered in the four seats of Muslim majority Rajouri district. The Nowshera assembly segment has 84,657 voters – 43,406 males and 41,251 females.
This seat was won by Ramesh Chander Sharma of the Congress in the 2002 assembly elections.
Rajouri has 105,271 voters – 54,323 males and 50,948 females – and was won by Mohammad Aslam of the National Conference (NC) while Kalakot with 75,343 voters had gone to Rachpal Singh of the same party in the last elections.
The fourth Darhal constituency went to independent candidate Puran Singh in the last elections.
Ganderbal district has Kangan constituency with 59,879 voters that went to Mian Altaf Ahmad of the NC.
The prestigious Ganderbal constituency with 77,616 votes had gone to Qazi Mohammad Afzal of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) when he defeated Omar Abdullah, the national president of NC.
Rajouri district has 388 polling stations and Ganderbal has 142.
With two more days to go for filing of nominations for the first phase of polling, the main political parties Congress, NC, PDP and Bharatiya Janata Party have still to field their candidates.
The parties are finding it hard not only to finalise the list of contestants but also shaping their manifestoes.
So far, only PDP has come out with its manifesto that has the punch line “Make Self Rule Happen”.