Srinagar, Sep 02: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its fourth list of candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina will be its candidate for the Nowshera constituency in the Jammu region.
With this latest list, the BJP has announced 51 candidates so far, including 14 for the Kashmir Valley, where the party has yet to win a seat in previous assembly elections.
Ravinder Raina, who secured a victory in Nowshera during the 2014 elections, will once again contest from his home constituency in Rajouri district. Other candidates in the newly released list include former MLC Vibodh Gupta, who will contest from Rajouri (ST) in the Jammu region. In the Kashmir Valley, the BJP has fielded Aijaz Hussain for Lal Chowk, Arif Raja for Eidgah, Ali Mohammad Mir for Khansahib, and Zahid Hussain for Chrar-e-Sharief.
The list was approved by the party’s central election committee as part of its broader strategy for the upcoming polls.
Jammu and Kashmir, which now has a 90-member assembly, is set to hold elections in three phases on September 18, 25, and October 1. The six seats announced in this latest list will go to vote in the second phase of the elections.
These elections are particularly significant as they are the first to be held in Jammu and Kashmir since the revocation of Article 370 in August 2019, which led to the reorganization of the state into two union territories.