New Delhi: Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) candidate Khursheed Ahmad Sheikh, the younger brother of Baramulla MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh—better known as Engineer Rashid—has won from the Langate constituency, defeating his nearest rival, Irfan Sultan Pandithpuri of the Sajad Lone-led People’s Conference, by 1,602 votes.
A government teacher, Ahmad took voluntary retirement to contest the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections.
Langate was earlier held for two consecutive terms by Rashid, founder of the AIP, who was arrested and jailed on terror-funding charges but won the Lok Sabha polls this year, defeating former J&K CM Omar Abdullah from Baramulla, while contesting from prison. Rashid is currently out on bail.
Ahmad was up against Pandithpuri, a District Development Council chairperson of Kupwara and son of former MLA Mohammad Sultan Pandithpuri; and Dr Kalimullah Lone, who was contesting as an Independent backed by the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious-political organisation. The NC-Congress combine fielded Ishfaq Ahmad from the seat.
Lone, who is from Ananwan village in Langate, is the son of former Jamaat-e-Islami general secretary Ghulam Qadir Lone.
Langate, in north Kashmir, used to be considered a stronghold of the National Conference, but became a bastion of the AIP after Rashid won from there in 2008 and retained the seat in 2014. The constituency, which saw a good voter turnout of 63.89 percent on 1 October, has thus become a high-stakes battle for AIP.
Jammu & Kashmir voted for its 90-member assembly in three phases—starting 18 September and ending 1 October. It is the region’s first assembly poll in 10 years.
The main parties in the fray were INDIA bloc members National Conference (NC) and Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)