Jammu: BJP candidates win for the third consecutive time
Jammu: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday put up a record-breaking performance as its candidates from Jammu and Udhampur parliamentary constituencies achieved a hat-trick of victory in the General Elections-2024. Moreover, the party secured the highest vote share i.e. 24.36 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir; ahead of NC (22.30 per cent) and Congress (19.38 per cent). BJP candidate from Jammu Lok Sabha seat Jugal Kishore Sharma defeated his nearest Congress rival Raman Bhalla by 1,35,498 votes. Sharma secured 6,87,588 votes (677571 EVM votes and 10017 postal votes) with 52.8 per cent vote share. Bhalla secured 5,52,090 votes (546031 EVM votes and 6059 postal votes) with 32.4 per cent vote share. In Udhampur parliamentary constituency too, Congress candidate Choudhary Lal Singh lost to BJP candidate Dr Jitendra Singh by a margin of 1,24,373 votes. Dr Jitendra Singh got 5,71,076 votes (566833 EVM votes and 4243 postal votes) with a vote share of 51.28 per cent while Choudhary Lal Singh got 4,46,703 votes (444151 EVM votes and 2552 postal votes) with a vote share of 40.11 per cent. Kathua, June 04: Union Minister of State and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Jitendra Singh is leading from Udhampur-Kathua seat in the Lok Sabha elections in Kathua on Tuesday. (ANI Photo) However, the victory margin of both Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma has reduced compared to 2019. In 2019, Jugal Kishore defeated his own rival, Congress candidate Raman Bhalla, by a margin of 3,02,875 votes from the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary seat, while Dr Jitendra Singh captured the Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest rival, Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh, by a margin of 3.57 lakh votes.
In the case of Dr Jitendra, the victory margin was among the ten largest recorded across the country in 2019. For both Jugal and Dr Jitendra, the performance in 2019 was better. In 2014, Dr Jitendra earned the title of “giant-killer” by defeating former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, the (then) Congress candidate, by a margin of 62,000 votes. Similarly, Jugal won the Jammu seat in 2014 with a victory margin of 2.57 lakh votes against Madan Lal Sharma of the Congress. The feat of scoring a hat-trick from Udhampur seat was also achieved by veteran Congress leader Dr Karan Singh in 1971, 1977 and 1980. Before scoring a hat-trick as MP, Jugal, a dedicated RSS worker, also served as MLA from Nagrota twice. He also served as Jammu and Kashmir BJP president. Dr Jitendra, a doctor by profession, came into the limelight during the Shri Amarnath land dispute in 2008. After becoming an MP for the first time in 2014, he was made Union Minister of State in the PMO. He retained this charge with additional important ministries (independent charge) during his second term starting from 2019.
A total of 22 candidates, including Jugal and Bhalla, were in the fray for the Jammu parliamentary constituency.
Among other candidates, Jagdish Raj of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got 10300 votes; Satish Punchhi (Independent) got 5959 votes, Ankur Sharma of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal got 4278 votes, Naresh Kumar Chib of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (Bhim) got 4243 votes, Principal CD Sharma (Independent) 3257 votes, Karanjit (Independent) 3207 votes, Shabbir Ahmed (Independent) 3177 votes, Shikha Bandral of National Awami United Party got 2937 votes, Dr. Prince Raina (Independent) 2866 votes, Raj Kumar (Independent) 2618 votes, Surinder Singh (Independent) 2226 votes, Atul Raina (Independent) 2068 votes, Ratan Lal of Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference got 1651 votes, Swami Divya Nand of Jammu and Kashmir Nationalist People’s Front got 1620 votes, Parseen Singh (Independent) 1589 votes, Naresh Kumar Talla (Independent) 1459 votes Hindustan Shakti Sena’s Ganesh Choudhary got 1190 votes; Vicky Kumar Dogra (Independent) got 1165 votes; Bansi Lal (Independent) got 1059 votes and Qari Zaheer Abbas Bhatti of All India Forward Bloc got 984 votes. All these candidates forfeited their deposits as they could not secure at least one-sixth of the total valid votes. 4645 voters opted for NOTA (None of the Above) option for the Jammu Lok Sabha seat. A total of 13.02 lakh voters exercised their franchise in this parliamentary constituency. Contest in Udhampur For the Udhampur-Kathua-Doda parliamentary constituency, twelve candidates including Dr Jitendra Singh and Choudhary Lal Singh were in the fray. Apart from the BJP and Congress candidates, GM Saroori of Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) secured 39599 votes (39519 EVM votes and 80 postal votes) with 3.56 vote share; Mehraj Din (Independent) 9082 votes; Amit Kumar of Bahujan Samaj Party 8642 votes; Mohammad Ali Gulzar (Independent) 7158 votes; Manoj Kumar of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal 6834 votes; Balwan Singh of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (Bhim) 3292 votes; Swarn Veer Singh Jaral.
