Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday re-released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, moments after the party withdrew it, but with just names of candidates for the first phase.

The earlier list also mentioned those contesting in the second and third phases as well. Meanwhile, no changes have been made in the candidates picked for the first phase.

In its now-withdrawn list, the saffron party had fielded Arvind Gupta from Jammu West and Sham Lal Sharma from Jammu North. Two Kashmiri Pandits, 14 Muslim candidates were also named in the first list. Several leaders, who jumped ship from Congress, National Conference, PDP and Panthers Party joined the BJP, also got featured in the now-deleted list.

However, some key names were missing from the list. Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina, and former Deputy Chief Ministers Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta’s names were not listed.

Jammu and Kashmir BJP Candidates List 2024:

  1. Er. Syed Showkat Gayoor Andrabi – Pampore
  2. Arshid Bhat – Rajpora
  3. Javed Ahmad Qadri – Shopian
  4. Mohd. Rafiq Wani – Anantnag West
  5. Advocate Syed Wazahat – Anantnag
  6. Sofi Yousuf – Srigufwara-Bijbehara
  7. Veer Saraf – Shangus-Anantnag East
  8. Tariq Keen – Inderwal
  9. Shagun Parihar – Kishtwar
  10. Sunil Sharma – Padder-Nagseni
  11. Daleep Singh Parihar – Bhadarwah
  12. Gajay Singh Rana – Doda
  13. Shakti Raj Parihar – Doda West
  14. Rakesh Thakur – Ramban
  15. Salim Bhat – Banihal
  16. Choudhary Roshan Hussain Gujjar – Kokernag (ST)

Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections are scheduled to be held in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1. The results will be declared on October 4.

Of the 90 assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, 74 are reserved for general, nine for Scheduled Tribes, and seven for Scheduled Castes. The Union Territory has 87.09 lakh eligible electorates with an equal percentage of males and females, according to the Election Commission.

Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir were held in 2014 before this. In the 2014 election, the BJP put up a strong front by winning 25 seats and the PDP emerged as the single largest party with 28 wins. The incumbent National Conference won 15 seats and the Congress bagged 12. Following the election, the BJP and the PDP forged an alliance, led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then by Mehbooba Mufti after the former’s death in 2016.