Jammu & Kashmir: local bodies' elections
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District Development Council elections
2020
A backgrounder=
Decemner 10, 2020: The Times of India
Jammu & Kashmir District Development Council elections: All you need to know
Why the DDC polls?
The DDC elections are being held in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time after the Centre amended the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Raj Act, 1989, after the revocation of Article 370 last year.
DDC: The composition
DDC works jointly with District Planning Committee and Block Development Council from each district. A council consists of fourteen members elected from the countryside and also from the built-up areas where needed or approved by the Election Commission of India.
DDC is a form of elected local government of the Jammu and Kashmir union territory. It is primarily aimed at electing the members from the rural and urban areas for the District Planning Committee and the council itself with fourteen members from each district for speedy development and economic uplift.
Star contenders
Kashmir is undergoing a major political transition, with several established figures being humbled during the ongoing local elections-the first after New Delhi abrogated
Article 370 and 35A. While senior Congress leader and former minister Taj Mohiuddin is in the poll fray for Phase-5 of the DDC elections in Jammu and Kashmir for which ballots will be cast on December 10, the fate of several former ministers and ex-MLAs hangs in balance as voting has already been completed for the first four phases.
The 72-year-old Gujjar leader Taj Mohiuddin is contesting against the Peoples Conference (PC) activist Shaukat Ali Khan in his home constituency of Parenpillan Uri, close to the LoC, in northern Kashmir.
Shaukat Ali Khan, supported by Farooq Abdullah's Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti's J&K Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is the consensus candidate from the 'People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration' (PAGD). Altaf Bukhari's Apni Party (AP) has fielded Choudhary Rafeeq Balot, another local Gujjar activist, who was once Taj's right-hand man in the Congress party.
Known as the Congress party's 'crown', Taj has represented Uri as MLA twice. He has functioned as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah.
Fate of a number of star politicians in J&K's electoral arena has already been sealed by the electors in Phase-3 and Phase-4 of the polling.
The political stalwarts who tried their luck in Phase-3 of the polling include senior PDP leader and former deputy chief minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig's wife, Safeena Baig, who is contesting as an independent candidate but interestingly continuing as president of PDP's women's wing.
Safeena Baig has locked horns with the PAGD nominee and NC activist Shaeena Begum in the reserved-for-women Wagora (Sangrama) constituency in Baramulla district.
Nasreen Firdaus, wife of the slain PDP Minister Dr Ghulam Nabi Lone and mother of former Congress MLA Shoib Lone (now in Apni Party) is contesting as the AP's candidate.
In the same constituency, a Kashmiri Pandit woman, Babli Devi, is contesting for the vacancy of a sarpanch.
NC's former minister Abdul Gani Malik is contesting the DDC election from the Mahore constituency in Jammu's Reasi district. Senior Congress leader Haji Buland Khan's son, ex-Minister Aijaz Khan, is also contesting from Thuroo in the same district. Having resigned from Congress, he is now representing the Apni Party.
Shah Mohammad Tantray, PDP's ex-MLA in Jammu's Poonch district, is contesting as an independent candidate from Loran in the same district. He is facing a tough competition from the former Riyaz Ahmad Naz, the son of the former MLA Choudhary Bashir Ahmad Naz.
Former Congress minister Shabir Khan is trying his luck from Manjakot in Rajouri while former BJP ministers Sham Choudhary, Choudhary Sukhnandan and Shakti Raj Parihar are contesting the DDC elections from Suchetgarh, Marh and Doda, respectively.
Dr Shahnaz Ganaie, NC's ex-MLC, is now contesting as an independent candidate against Atiqa Begum, the mother of the NC's ex-MLA Aijaz Jan and the wife of NC's exMLA of Poonch, Ghulam Mohammad Jan, in the reserved-for-women Mandi constituency in Poonch district.
PDP's ex-minister and two-time MLA Choudhary Zulfikar, an influential Gujjar leader whose father late Chouhary Mohammad Hussain had been returned for the Assembly five times on the NC's ticket, has now joined Apni Party. He has fielded his wife Zubaida as AP's candidate from Budhal Old-A in Jammu's Rajouri district.
Interestingly, Zulfikar's nephew Choudhary Javed Iqbal, the brother of Srinagar deputy commissioner, Shahid Iqbal, has made his wife Shazia Kousar resign as a government school teacher in Jammu and fielded her against Zulfikar's wife. Javed was elected as sarpanch in 2018 and chairman of the block development council in 2019.
Veteran Congress leader and former minister Mula Ram's son, Rajinder Kumar Happy, is trying his luck in his maiden election from the Marh constituency in Jammu district.
