Jailed Lok Sabha member Sheikh Abdul Rashid has been granted a week's interim bail by the Delhi High Court to visit his ailing father in Srinagar. Rashid, an MP from Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla, is facing trial in a terror-funding case and has been in Delhi's Tihar Jail since 2019.
Mehbooba said the parliamentary board of the party, which met earlier on Saturday, decided not to field any candidates from the two Lok Sabha seats in Jammu region.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
The Delhi High Court has granted one-week interim bail to jailed Lok Sabha member Sheikh Abdul Rashid to visit his ailing father, under strict conditions including police escort and restrictions on visitors.
Omar Abdullah told the media on Friday, April 12, 2024, that he is contesting from north Kashmir as the National Conference wanted to defeat the central government, which is eyeing the Baramulla constituency as Sajjad Lone is contesting from the seat.
Jammu and Kashmir Bharatiya Janata Party chief Ravinder Raina is going to miss voting for his party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as the party has not fielded any candidate from his home town which falls in Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency.
The junior Abdullah would be banking heavily on Shia support as the constituency has many Shia dominated areas that include Budgam, Beerwah, Pattan, Sonawari and Bandipora, among other pockets.
The previous highest voter turnout in the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency was witnessed in 1984 at 58.90 percent.
The outgoing Lok Sabha had 23 Muslim MPs, the most being from Congress and TMC. The highest number of Muslim MPs were in 1980 when as many as 49 MPs from the community which constitute nearly fifth of Indian population present in the Lok Sabha.
A Delhi court has granted Lok Sabha MP Engineer Rashid, currently jailed on terror funding charges, permission to vote in the upcoming Vice Presidential election.
The row broke out after a private television news agency attributed the excerpts of the article shared by the NC leader to him.
Parts of Rahul Gandhi's speech during the Operation Sindoor discussion in the Lok Sabha were expunged from the record after he criticised the government for trying to protect Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image.
The poll is witnessing a direct contest between ruling NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy, with the BJP-led alliance having a clear edge in the poll necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.
While the Congress will contest the Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats, National Conference will fight from Srinagar.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday evening released its first list of 54 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
Officials said the polling went off peacefully in all segments including special polling stations along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) with no untoward incident reported from anywhere.
The Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency in Jammu and Kashmir will vote on Monday, May 20.
In April this year, Umar's mother also issued an appeal to him to surrender before the forces.
The notice requested Rashid or a representative of his to appear before the district expenditure monitoring committee within two days to address the discrepancy and ensure timely submission of the expenditure report to the Election Commission of India.
A voter turnout of 69.69 percent was recorded in the third and final phase of voting Tuesday in the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Election Commission said.
With two phases of voting already completed, political parties are busy with filing nominations, addressing roadshows and undertaking hectic campaigns for the constituencies that will vote this month.
The Delhi High Court has ordered Jammu and Kashmir MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh, alias Engineer Rashid, to deposit Rs 4 lakh with the prison authorities as travel expenses for attending Parliament. The court allowed Rashid to attend the ongoing Parliament session "in-custody" till April 4, but the NIA had raised concerns about him being a flight risk. Rashid has been lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail since 2019 after the NIA arrested him in a 2017 terror-funding case.
Omar Abdullah lost by 204,142 votes; Mehbooba Mufti by 281, 794 votes.
Additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh granted the relief to Rashid, who had moved the court seeking interim bail to campaign in the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections.
ASJ Chander Jit Singh underscored he would first consider the issue of jurisdiction and whether or not to transfer the case to a special court meant to try lawmakers, considering Rashid was now an MP.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
'If, as happened in Baramulla during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the youth in the Valley get triggered enough to jump into the wider fray, the end result would be difficult to predict, especially as the state's post-August 5, 2019 political format remains substantially fragmented and foggy,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
A day after voters in the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency exercised their franchise, some of them were thrashed for defying the separatist call for boycott of the elections, district officials said.
Those familiar with intricate Kashmir politics do not rule out further delay in the assembly elections. Primarily, because the BJP having 'invested' so much for so long in Kashmir would try its best to wait a little longer if only to secure the 'gains' it believes to have achieved after its deafening action on August 5, 2019, points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The Delhi High Court granted two-day custody parole to jailed J&K MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh, allowing him to attend the ongoing Parliament session. The court imposed certain restrictions on Rashid, including a ban on using a cellphone or addressing the media, and ordered that he be escorted by armed police personnel to and from the Lok Sabha. The decision came after a legal battle between the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which argued against the parole, and Rashid's lawyers, who highlighted the importance of his representation in Parliament during the budget session. Rashid's case is linked to funding separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and connections to designated terrorist Hafeez Saeed.
Lone, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Baramulla constituency, said one of the reasons he wants to go to Parliament is to strive and advocate for the same set of laws for the children of Kashmir and the rest of the country.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Friday challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest Lok Sabha polls in the Kashmir Valley, saying he will quit politics if the national party's candidates do not lose their security deposits.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said the EC was very enthused by the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir during the Lok Sabha elections, which showed the eagerness of the people to participate in the democratic process.
Political parties, cutting across affiliations and ideologies, Friday welcomed the Kashmir rail link inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hoping for a boost in trade and tourism in the valley.
The fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections has so far registered a voter turnout of approximately 62.19 percent, 1.97 percentage points less than 2019.
Umar Ganie captures glimpses of snow covered Gulmarg as it hosts a mega voter awareness programme ahead of the Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, April 3, 2024.
The Election Commission on Monday said the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir this time was the highest in a Lok Sabha election in the last 35 years with the Kashmir Valley witnessing a 'massive' 30 percentage point jump in poll participation compared to 2019.
Singh, 31, and Rashid, 56, won the recent Lok Sabha elections from Khadoor Sahib in Punjab and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, respectively, as Independents while being incarcerated.
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