Srinagar
The stage is all set for the first phase of parliamentary polls in Baramulla constituency in north Kashmir, where over 32,000 additional security men have been deployed to ensure peaceful voting on Thursday.For the first time in the last 23 years, Kashmiri separatists, who are facing a major crackdown, have not carried out any visible anti-election campaign in Kashmir.
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The Baramulla Lok Sabha \nconstituency, spread over 15 Assembly segments in three border districts\n of Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora, will see a tough contest between \nfour players National Conference\u2019s Akbar Lone, People\u2019s Conference\u2019s \nRaja Aijaz Ali, Peoples Democratic Party\u2019s Qayoom Wani and Awami Ittehad\n Party leader Abdul Rashid Sheikh, alias Engineer Rasheed.
While \nNC\u2019s Akbar Lone, a three-time MLA from Sonwari, will be banking on \ntraditional votes, PDP\u2019s Qayoom Wani, a former trade union leader \ncontesting for the first time, hopes that the teaching community will \ncome out to vote for him. Cop-turned-politician Raja Aijaz Ali has \nprojected his party as an alternative to the NC and the PDP. Firebrand \nleader and former independent MLA Rasheed too has been able to attract \nlarge crowds. With IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal and former \nminister Ghulam Hassan Mir coming in support of Rasheed, he is also a \nstrong contender.
The high decibel poll campaign has been marred \nby controversies with NC\u2019s Akbar Lone leading the chorus by raising \n\u201cPakistan zindabad\u201d slogans during an rally.The People\u2019s Conference \nfocused on development for Kupwara, promising a tunnel to the landlocked\n border region of Karnah. The party also targeted the NC more than the \nPDP.
The PDP on the other hand highlighted the need to safeguard \nthe special constitutional position of J&K, promising to ensure that\n these laws stay. The party was back to its soft separatist politics and\n targeted its former alliance partner BJP. Though overall security in \nnorth Kashmir is better than south Kashmir districts, the authorities \nare not taking any chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SrinagarThe stage is all set for the first phase of parliamentary polls in Baramulla constituency in north Kashmir, where over 32,000 additional security men have been deployed to ensure peaceful voting on Thursday.For the first time in the last 23 years, Kashmiri separatists, who are facing a major crackdown, have not carried out any visible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[407,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jammu-kashmir","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58897,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895\/revisions\/58897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}