The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced the names of 51 candidates so far for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, scheduled to take place from September 18 to October 4.
This is the first Assembly election after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019 and bifurcation of J&K into two Union Territories, J&K and Ladakh.
In the 2014 J&K Assembly election, the BJP won 25 seats from Jammu, whereas the PDP secured 28 seats from Kashmir. This led to the formation of an unpopular PDP-BJP coalition government, with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the Chief Minister. However, on June 19, 2018, the BJP withdrew from the alliance, collapsing the PDP-BJP government under Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
Here is the list of BJP candidates announced so far:
Jammu Constituencies:
Akhnoor (SC): Mohan Lal Bhagat
Bani: Jeevan Lal
Banihal: Salim Bhat
Basohli: Darshan Singh
Bilawar: Satish Sharma
Budhal (ST): Chowdhary Zulfikar Ali
Chenani: Balwant Singh Mankotia
Chhamb: Rajeev Sharma
Gulabgarh (ST): Mohammad Akram Chaudhary
Hiranagar: Adv Vijay Kumar Sharma
Jammu East: Yudhvir Sethi
Jammu North: Sham Lal Sharma
Jammu West: Arvind Gupta
Jasrota: Rajiv Jasrotia
Kalakote-Sunderbani: Thakur Randhir Singh
Mata Vaishno Devi: Baldev Raj Sharma
Nagrota: Dr Devinder Singh Rana
Nowshera: Ravinder Raina
Ramgarh (SC): Dr Devinder Kumar Maniyal
Ramnagar (SC): Sunil Bhardwaj
R.S. Pura-Jammu South: Dr Narinder Singh Raina
Samba: Surjit Singh Slathia
Suchetgarh (SC): Gharu Ram Bhagat
Thannamandi (ST): Mohd. Iqbal Malik
Udhampur West: Pawan Gupta
Vijaypur: Chandra Prakash Ganga
Kashmir Constituencies:
Anantnag: Adv. Syed Wazahat
Anantnag West: Mohd Rafiq Wani
Bijbehara-Srigufwara: Sofi Yousuf
Chrar-i-Sharief: Zahid Hussain
Eidgah: Arif Raja
Habbakadal: Ashok Bhat
Khansahib: Dr. Ali Mohammad Mir
Kishtwar: Shagun Parihar
Kokernag: Choudhary Roshan Hussain Gujjar
Lal Chowk: Er. Aijaz Hussain
Pampore: Er. Syed Showkat Gayoor Andrabi
Padder-Nagseni: Sunil Sharma
Rajpora: Arshid Bhat
Shangus-Anantnag East: Veer Saraf
Shopian: Jawed Ahmad Qadri
